GOOD TIMES BACK AS LUXURY CAR SALES ROAR AHEAD - In yet another sign that the recession is ending, sales are racing ahead at the Irish company which imports and distributes several luxury car brands here.
Pre-tax profits at Armalou Holdings more than doubled last year to €2.28m after its sales surged 32% to €80.3m in 2013, reports the Irish Independent. Armalou is the holding firm for the OHM Group where profits and revenues rose came despite a sharp decline in sales of Jaguar and Land Rovers last year. Figures from the Irish Motor Industry (IMI) show that Land Rover sales declined 18% last year to 409 while sales of Jaguar cars fell 25% to 154. However, sales of both brands have rebounded sharply this year with sales of Land Rover up by 31% for the first ten months and sales of Jaguar cars up by 23%. The holding company is also involved in selling Volvo, Ford and Skoda motors while it also operates the Spirit Motor Group in south Dublin. The group added the Skoda brand to its portfolio in November of last year. The directors say the addition of Skoda franchise will further strengthen the group's position and ensure that the group remains profitable for the foreseeable future.
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IRISH AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE ESCAPES PAYING $200m IN TAXES - Billionaire Irish American businessman John Malone, who owns a number of prestigious properties in Ireland, didn’t just reduce his company’s tax bill when he shifted the address of UPC parent Liberty Global from Colarado to London last year. He also took precautions to avoid the capital-gains hit that the so-called inversion would trigger for him and other investors, writes the Irish Times. The day before the deal was announced, Mr Malone - the company’s chairman and controlling shareholder - transferred $600 million of his shares into a tax-exempt charitable trust. He avoided paying taxes on his remaining stake, worth about $260 million, by exploiting IRS regulations meant to block a different loophole. All told, Mr Malone escaped about $200 million in personal taxes, and Liberty Global’s US shareholders together likely saved more than a billion dollars, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “He’s congenitally averse to paying taxes,” said Robert Willens, an independent tax accounting analyst in New York City. As the Obama administration attempts to implement anti-inversion rules announced in September, Liberty’s strategies illustrate how billionaires and their companies find their way around tax regulations, and take advantage of unintended consequences.
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€100m SUMMIT BOOST FOR THE CAPITAL - In addition to the tens of thousands of attendees, thousands of start-ups, and hundreds of investors, this year’s Web Summit will bring more than €100m in revenue to the Dublin economy over the next three days. As stars of technology, business, sport, and food descend on the capital’s RDS, about 22,000 attendees are expected to boost the local economy to the tune of €102m, says the Irish Examiner. Fáilte Ireland director of market development John Concannon said the summit represented a unique opportunity to showcase Ireland and its potential as a business location to the attendees - more than 85% of which are from overseas. “Not only does it bring in great business for Dublin but it does much more for Brand Dublin and Brand Ireland,” said Mr Concannon. “It presents Ireland as an innovative and creative place to visit and do business. The press it brings is unparalleled.” The event, which will take place across nine stages, is a prime opportunity for business leaders and investors to mingle and inevitably leads to deals being struck. Last year, the top 25 start-ups exhibiting at the Web Summit raised over €320m ($400m) in its aftermath. Companies such as Qualtrics, Dropbox, Nordeus, Squarespace, and Zendesk have since set up bases in Ireland, while smart-home pioneers Smartthings won the events start-up award in 2012 and went on to be acquired by Samsung for $200m last summer.
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BARRATT MOVES TO TAILOR HOUSE DESIGNS AND LOCATIONS TO OLDER POPULATION - Britain’s biggest housebuilder, Barratt Developments, is changing the way it designs, locates and markets some of its homes in an attempt to capitalise on the country’s rising population of older homeowners. The largest specialist older-people’s housebuilder, McCarthy & Stone, is also launching a lifestyle division aimed at downsizing baby boomers. The moves are the latest sign that companies round the world are seeking to tap into a market that will dominate spending in the coming decades. The baby boomer generation of over 55s is expected to wield global spending power of $15 trillion by 2020, according to Euromonitor. The shift has emerged as the Financial Times explores the response of business and industry to the rise of the Silver Economy in the final week of a six-part series. Companies from Nestlé to Google to Ford are altering their products and business models to serve this rapidly growing ageing generation. Barratt is changing designs for four-bedroom family houses traditionally aimed at young families and first-time buyers, to offer some properties instead designed with a larger master suite and two flexible study/bedrooms as it targets the growing market of over-55s. The move responds to a fundamental change in home ownership in Britain, with property increasingly concentrated in the hands of the old. Three-quarters of people aged 60 and over own their own home, whereas less than a third of those aged 25 to 34 do, according to the Office for National Statistics. This younger generation is forecast to grow by just 5% over the next 20 years, while the number of those 60 and over in the UK is expected to double to 21 million.
