IRELAND SET TO REPLAY FIRST TRANCHE OF €9 BILLION TO IMF NEXT MONTH - The Government expects to repay €9 billion of the State's loans with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December, in what will be the first instalment of the early repayment of our bailout funds from the Washington DC-based body.
This has been confirmed by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan in a reply to a question from Fianna Fáil's finance spokesman Michael McGrath, says the Irish Times. "The early repayment [of the IMF loans] will take place in tranches, with the first tranche of approximately €9 billion planned for next month," Mr Noonan said. It is understood this money will be paid from existing cash balances held by the National Treasury Management Agency on behalf of the State. Ireland intends to repay €18.3 billion of our €22.5 billion IMF loan, which dates back to the financial assistance programme agreed with the fund and the EU in late 2010. Mr Noonan said this is the portion of the loan subject to the highest rate of interest. The intention was to replace it, in a "measured way", with "less expensive market funding". A clause in our loan agreements with the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM), and with bilateral lenders the UK, Denmark and Sweden meant that waivers from them were required to repay the IMF loans early.
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STOBART BOSS CAR RESIGNS AFTER JUST SIX MONTHS IN THE JOB - The managing director of Dublin-based airline Stobart Air, Julian Carr, has resigned from the position just six months after taking on the role, the Irish Independent has learned. A spokesman for the carrier confirmed Mr Carr's surprise departure and said he finished with the airline last Friday. He declined to comment further. It's understood that Sean Brogan, Stobart Air's chairman, has stepped back into the day-to-day running of the airline and will now continue in that executive capacity. Formerly known as Aer Arann, Stobart Air is now 45%-owned by British transport group Stobart, with Invesco owning 42%. Stobart first invested in Aer Arann in 2010 in a deal to help the airline exit examinership. It's believed that a decision to put Mr Brogan back in full control of the business was taken at board level within Stobart.
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IRELAND WILL BE URGED TO MAKE EXTRA CUTS IN BUDGET - The government is likely to be advised to make more than the planned cuts in next year’s budget when the European Commission gives its opinion on the draft budget for 2015 today, writes the Irish Examiner. EU sources said they are taking into account the report from the troika when they visited Dublin earlier this month and warned about both the country’s debt and the deficit, despite more progress being made than originally expected. The Commission and the ECB’s report said that they expected the general government deficit this year to be around 3.7% - well below the original target of 5.1%. But the IMF warned that the deficit may be over 4% of GDP this year and “remains too large to put Ireland’s high debt firmly on a downward path”. The government expects to easily reach next year's target to to cut the deficit to under 3%. But the IMF says that the draft budget makes less progress than desirable and should result in an adjustment of about a half percent of GDP in structural terms. While the government has said that it will reduce the top rate of tax from 52% to 50%, both the Commission and the IMF advise that any additional savings to come from the budget should be used to lower the deficit next year.
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CHRIS HOHN IN RECORD-BREAKING $530m DIVORCE SETTLEMENT - Hedge fund billionaire Sir Chris Hohn is set to pay his American-born ex-wife $530m in what is thought to be the biggest divorce settlement ever awarded by an English court. Sir Chris, one of the world’s top investors with a personal fortune of $1.3 billion, is to pay Jamie Cooper Hohn around $530m, including $493m in cash and a house in Connecticut, her lawyer told a court hearing on Thursday. The son of a Jamaican car mechanic who grew up in Surrey, Sir Chris has been fighting his estranged wife in the High Court since July over the size of her financial award upon divorce. Ms Cooper-Hohn was seeking half of the marital assets but her husband claimed she was only entitled to 25%. He argued that the extraordinary wealth generated by him constituted a special contribution to the marriage, so she should be awarded less than half. Ironically for a case centred around a fight over money, Sir Chris painted himself as someone more concerned about philanthropy than wealth - although he did acknowledge he was an “unbelievable money-maker”. Sir Chris runs The Children’s Investment Fund, a hedge fund that returns most of its profits to a charity, but he claimed before a July court hearing that he lives a “very simple life”. The judge commented that the couple lived a “Swatch lifestyle” rather than a jet set one.
