TOP FOUR BANK INQUIRY INVESTIGATORS TO BE PAID €566,119 - The top four investigators working on the banking inquiry will be paid €566,119 over 12 months, writes the Irish Times. Peter Rossiter, a chartered accountant who was a banker in Citibank until 2009 has been appointed as senior investigator on an interim basis until mid-January 2015. The position, when filled,will attract an annual salary of €172,710. Mr Rossiter returned to Ireland as chief risk officer with Anglo Irish Bank in November 2009 before joining AIB in May 2012 where he has worked on trying to restructure the bank and prepare it for reprivatisation. The veteran banker will initially work with the committee on its scoping and planning phase until mid-January 2015. The inquiry has also appointed two lead investigators on an annual salary of €131,373 each. Helen Bunbury has been appointed as lead investigator on the Central Banking and Financial Regulation stream of the inquiry. She has worked for 20-years in the financial services and legal industries and was most recently group chief operating officer with law firm and trust administration business Ogier. She previously worked at a senior level with RSA, the insurance group, for 16 years. Pat McLoughlin, the former chief executive of the Irish Payment Services Organisation, has been appointed as lead investigator for the Irish Public Sector Governance stream of the inquiry.
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GOODMAN'S ABP FOOD GROUP IN €4m DEAL TO BRING IRISH BEEF BACK TO JAPAN - ABP Food Group, the agribusiness chaired by Larry Goodman, has become the first Irish company to sign a major beef contract with Japan since that country imposed a ban on beef produced here following the BSE outbreak, reports the Irish Independent. The ban, which was introduced in 2000, was ultimately lifted late last year, with Bord Bia estimating that the Japanese beef market could be worth €12m-€15m to Irish producers in the short to medium term. This deal, with Japanese partner Nanso ELT, is worth €4m to ABP. "Our focus now is to grow the business and build the reputation of premium Irish beef in Japan," ABP Food international commercial director Mark Goodman said. "Japanese consumers are among the most discerning in the world," he added. "Over 60% of locally produced beef is Wagyu (a type of beef seen as high-quality), so I think it's testament to the competitiveness and quality of Ireland's grass-fed beef offering that we have succeeded in gaining entry to this market." Mark Goodman said Bord Bia had played "a major role" in "assisting [ABP] to communicate Ireland's sustainable, grass-fed hormone free message to Japanese consumers." Irish beef is banned in China and the government is currently seeking to have that ban overturned.
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GLENISH INTENDS TO DOUBLE OUTPUT DURING NEXT TWO YEARS - The chief executive of the family-run organic yoghurt maker Glenisk, Vincent Cleary yesterday announced plans by the firm to double output in the next two years. Over 100 million servings of yoghurt will be produced at the firm’s Tullamore, Co Offaly, plant this year and Mr Cleary said the planned doubling of output over the next two years will lead to employment numbers exceeding 100. Mr Cleary was commenting on new accounts showing that revenues at the firm last year increased by 11% from €16.94m to €18.78m, says the Irish Examiner. The increase in revenues was mainly driven by overseas sales with sales in the UK increasing more than five-fold from €338,952 to €1.75m with the firm breaking into other overseas markets for the first time recording sales of €129,139. Mr Cleary said “our intention is that our exports will account for 25% of our business after 2016”. Glenisk is available in Dubai and Mr Cleary said that the firm has plans to further develop its sales in that region. “Already, our Organic Kids and Organic Baby ranges are sold in six countries and are our fastest growing range,” he said.
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INSTAGRAM HITS 300 MILLION MONTHLY USERS TO TAKE IT AHEAD OF TWITTER - Instagram, the photo-sharing app, has overtaken Twitter in user numbers after announcing it has 300 million monthly active users taking, editing and sharing pictures of travel, fashion and food. The app, which was bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012, said its active userbase had grown by a third in the last nine months, says the Financial Times. The company has only just started to generate revenues, as it slowly experiments with sponsored posts and videos from brands that would traditionally have been more at home in glossy magazines, including Levi’s, Michael Kors and General Electric. The mobile advertising market is expected to pass $40 billion this year, according to research group eMarketer, with the US, China and the UK representing nearly 70% of the market. “With 300 millio monthly users, Instagram’s audience is becoming very attractive to marketers, especially brand advertisers, and its rapid growth will only make it more appealing,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at eMarketer.
