COURT WILL LET BOYLESPORTS QUESTION RIVAL LADBROKES IRELAND - The High Court is due to hear Boylesports’s full challenge to rival Ladbrokes Ireland’s examinership next week.
Ladbrokes Ireland is working its way through a rescue plan for the loss-making chain with High Court-appointed examiner, Ken Fennell of Deloitte. It plans to close up to 60 of its 196 betting shops in the Republic and cut some 250 jobs. The High Court yesterday agreed to allow rival Boylesports question aspects of the Ladbrokes Ireland examinership at a hearing on June 12th, says the Irish Times. Boylesports, which is preparing a bid for the Ladbrokes Ireland chain, said the examinership was effectively designed to ensure that the business remained under the ownership of its UK parent. Ladbrokes argues that the examinership is designed to save about 600 jobs in the Irish business and to ensure it has a long-term future. Boylesports says is it prepared to invest “an eight-figure sum” in the chain. However, it claims it has been prevented from accessing information it needs to formulate its final bid, which was originally due to be submitted to Mr Fennell today.
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RYANAIR HITS BACK AFTER DANES MULL PULLING PLUG ON PENSIONS - Ryanair says there will be "plenty of buyers" willing to snap up shares that Denmark's biggest pension fund manager, ATP, said it might consider offloading because of concerns over the airline's labour practices. A spokesman for the fund told Danish newspaper 'Berlingske' that it holds a stake in the Irish airline via a fund managed by a third party. The spokesman said ATP is now considering what to do with that investment, citing concerns about the ability of staff at the airline to organise under a union, writes the Irish Independent. While Ryanair doesn't prevent staff from joining a union, it does not negotiate with unions. The ATP spokesman said that if there are repeated and deliberate violations of international conventions to which Denmark is a signatory, then the pension fund manager would leave its holding in Ryanair. A decision is still a number of weeks away. ATP is Denmark's largest pension fund and social security provider, with 50% of all Danish pensioners relying on the state pension and ATP for their retirement income. ATP has 4.9 million members and pays the ATP Livslang Pension to almost one million pensioners. At the end of 2014, its biggest direct equity stake was a €214m holding in Danish healthcare company Novo Nordisk. Its tenth largest equity holding is a €80m stake in brewer Carlsberg.
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IRELAND A ‘STAND OUT’ IN GLOBAL DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT - Ireland is among the world’s elite in terms of digital development having consolidated its reputation as one of the key drivers of the global digital economy. Along with the likes of New Zealand and Israel, Ireland has been designated a “stand out” country by a new study from the Harvard Business Review, writes the Irish Examiner. Countries that have shown high levels of digital development in the past and continue to remain on an upward trajectory are categorised as ‘stand out’ by the business journal. Singapore leads the way followed by Sweden, Hong Kong and Switzerland. Despite our lofty ranking, warnings of previously innovative countries losing ground in terms of digital development abound, with the Netherlands a particularly strong example. The Dutch scenario is pitched in stark contrast to that of Singapore where, despite both being top 10 countries, the Asian powerhouse has continued to develop world-class infrastructure through public-private partnerships and remains an attractive start-up destination while The Netherlands has “been rapidly losing steam”.
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IKEA VOWS TO SPEND €1 BILLION ON CLIMATE CHANGE MEASURES - Ikea, the Swedish home furnishing group, has vowed to spend €1 billion on renewable energy and other measures to tackle climate change in a move that dwarfs what some countries are doing to address fossil fuel pollution. The family-controlled company says it will spend €500m on wind power and about €100m on solar energy over the next five years, writes the Financial Times. Its charitable arm, the Ikea Foundation, will devote another €400m over the same period to helping people in regions most affected by global warming. The group has urged other businesses to emulate its move, arguing such action could transform the way electricity is generated much faster than expected. “If every business and organisation did what we did, we would flip electricity generation into being renewable-based by 2020 or shortly thereafter,” said Steve Howard, Ikea’s chief sustainability officer. The group’s announcement comes as officials from nearly 200 countries gather in Bonn, Germany, to shape the negotiating text for a global climate change pact due to be finalised at a UN meeting in Paris in December. One of the stumbling blocks to sealing the Paris agreement is a reluctance by some wealthy countries to meet poorer countries’ demands for money to help them deal with climate change.
