ZARA OWNER TO OPEN NEW IRISH STORES AS RETAIL RECOVERS - Inditex, the Spanish retailing giant that owns the Zara group, says it plans to open more Irish stores when it finds suitable outlets.
The group, which has global sales of about €17 billion, recently filed accounts for a number of its Irish operations, including Zara, youth fashion outlets Bershka and Stradivarius, Pull & Bear and the mid-market Massimo Dutti. Inditex’s retail brands here all had flat or slightly lower sales in the year to the end of January, with the cost of store revamps hitting profits, writes the Irish Times. The group says it will open “stores as soon as suitable opportunities arise” to capitalise on the nascent retail recovery. Inditex is known to have retained property consultants to find new locations in Ireland, including Dublin and Cork. Za Clothing, the main Inditex company here that operates the nine Zara stores, had flat revenues in the year of about €56.7 million. Its net profits fell from €5.3 million to just over €3 million. The company, which has 31 Irish staff, paid a €3.3 million dividend to its Spanish parent.
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RYANAIR AND AER LINGUS TO SQUARE UP IN LONDON COURT - Ryanair will go to court in London next week to persuade judges that it should be allowed to hold on to its near 30% stake in Aer Lingus. The UK Court of Appeal will be hearing the case and it will be another key milestone in Ryanair's seven-year battle with regulators in Britain and the European Commission over its efforts to buy its smaller rival, says the Irish Independent. Lawyers for Aer Lingus will also make a case in court in support of the UK Competition and Markets Commission (CMC) ruling last year that Ryanair must sell virtually all its shares in the former state-owned airline. That could leave Ryanair owning just 5% of Aer Lingus, but it has already conceded that it no longer has any real interest in buying Aer Lingus. The hearing next week is pencilled in for just five hours, but it's likely to take almost two days as the three sides make their arguments to three judges. While there's an outside chance that a ruling could be made before Christmas, it's more likely to be sometime in the New Year before the court makes its decision known. It could conceivably take five or six months for a ruling to be delivered.
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AER RIANTA MAKES PROFIT OF €9m ON SALE OF INTERESTS - The Shannon-based duty free operator Aer Rianta International last year booked a profit of €9.3m on the sale of interests in its Commonwealth of Independent States-based duty-free business helping to increase its profits by 51% to €28.5m. The firm celebrated its 25th year in operation last year. It owns or operates retail businesses in nine countries across north America, the Middle East and Asia, says today's Irish Examiner. The accounts show the company had the large jump in profits in spite of revenues more than halving from €62.1m to €28.5m. This is mainly attributable to it selling its 33.3% shareholding in Aerofirst, the Moscow airport retail operation and its interest in Kievrianta LLC.
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AIRBUS PATENTS FLYING DOUGHNUTS - Airbus’s design for a future aircraft looks less like a conventional airliner and more like something from a 1950s sci-fi comic. If a patent application filed by the European aerospace and defence group takes off, future passengers could fasten their seat belts in cabins shaped like giant doughnuts - or flying saucers, writes the Financial Times. The UFO-like shape addresses a problem facing aircraft designers. Cylindrical shapes are good at containing the stresses of pressurised cabins but huge pressures on the cylinder’s front and rear ends need to be managed with strong, heavy structures. “The purpose of the invention is particularly to provide a simple, economic and efficient solution to these problems, or at least partially overcome the . . . disadvantages,” the application says. Airbus said although the design was worthwhile enough to protect with a patent - like about 6,000 other ideas its engineers devise every year - it was not an immediate prospect for shuttling passengers from Heathrow to JFK. “This is not something that’s currently under active development,” Airbus said. Other bizarre and futuristic ideas that the company have patented include the idea of an economy class seat for standing passengers shaped like a bicycle saddle; immersive virtual reality helmets for delivering in-flight entertainment; and, most alarmingly of all, a windowless cockpit.
