CARBON TRADING FIRM EXPECTS TO WIN €1.9M ROW - Celestial Green Ventures, the Irish company involved in carbon credit trading associated with a project in the Amazon forest, has said it believes it will win a dispute over the return of a €1.9 million deposit.
The dispute is one of two listed in the 2013 accounts that have just been filed and that show the company reporting a turnover of €2.89 million during the year, up from zero the year before, says the Irish Times. The company, which is controlled by Dublin-based director Ciarán Kelly, has reported a 2013 pre-tax profit of €1.6 million, having recorded a €1 million loss in 2012. The company moved to a larger premises on Merchants Quay, Dublin, in 2014 and increased its employment to 14, from seven, according to accounts just filed. A spokesman for the company could not be contacted yesterday. Notes to the accounts say it is in dispute with an unidentified former customer, now in liquidation, concerning the return of a deposit of €1.9 million. “The company has rejected this claim, has taken legal advice, and is of the view that no provision is necessary.”
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GOVERNMENT SOUGHT ADVICE ON PROPERTY MARKET FROM NAMA - Finance Minister Michael Noonan sought advice from Nama on how to control supply and demand in the property market, according to just-released minutes of Nama board meetings. In a highly unusual move, the minister effectively asked Nama to suggest solutions for managing a market which has historically been left to free enterprise, says the Irish Independent. At a Nama board strategy meeting on February 5 last year, Mr Noonan raised the "consideration" for Nama "to provide inventory of green and brown field sites, and advise on a mechanism to control supply/demand of land". "Referring to the boom/bust nature of the Irish property market, the minister requested Nama to consider a strategic solution to this historic problem and whether Nama or an alternate state development agency could be charged with holding land and releasing/withdrawing it as appropriate to regulate the market," the minutes of the meeting state. A department of finance spokesman said Mr Noonan "would have been aware of the expertise that became available because of the remit of Nama and would have been interested to hear their views". "Nothing concrete happened on foot of the meetings," he added.
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MRS BROWN BOOST FOR BRENDAN O'CARROLL COFFERS - Pre-tax profits at Brendan O’Carroll’s movie firm last year rocketed more than threefold to €578,886. The massive leap in profits for O’Carroll’s Boc Pix Ltd coincided with the release last year of his Irish blockbuster movie, Mrs Brown’s Boys: D’ Movie, writes the Irish Examiner. The film about the foul-mouthed mammy was the top-grossing Irish movie of 2014, taking in €3.8m at the box office. In its opening weekend alone, in the UK and Ireland it took in £4.3m (€6m). The movie’s total box office gross in the UK and Ireland was £14.7m (€20.5m). The earnings from the film didn’t stop there, with the CEO of Xtra-Vision, Larry Howard, declaring last November that Mrs Brown’s Boys D’ Movie DVD had become the fastest-selling DVD in the company’s history. Newly-filed accounts for O’Carroll’s firm show that pre-tax profits in the 12 months to the end of August last year soared by €422,808 or 270% from €156,077 to €578,886. The figures show that after paying corporation tax of €72,361, the firm recorded a post-tax profit of €506,525.
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HANERGY SECURED $200m LOAN AHEAD OF SOLAR GROUP STOCK TUMBLE - Li Hejun, the solar tycoon and controlling shareholder in Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, took a US$200m loan pledging millions of shares in the Hong Kong listed company as collateral just two days before its share price crashed last week, dethroning him as China’s richest man. The loan is the latest in a series of corporate loans involving British Virgin Island entities owned by HTF’s parent Hanergy Group, a Financial Times investigation has found. Through its BVI transactions, Hanergy pledged billions of shares in HTF - the world’s largest solar company - as the stock soared. The Hanergy companies and Mr Li have come under intense scrutiny as HTF grew at breakneck speed in recent months, propelling its market value to at least five times more than its nearest competitor, First Solar of the US. Until last week, HTF was valued at more than Tesla and Twitter. Mr Li has rejected concerns about its sustainability and said the company will revolutionise solar energy. But analysts have questioned HTF’s business model, which largely depends on sales of its solar equipment to its parent. They have also questioned some of its unconventional financial practices.
