CRH INVESTMENT SPEND SET TO PASS €7 BILLION WITH SOUTH KOREA CEMENT DEAL - CRH’s investment spend for this year looks set to inch past the €7 billion mark, with the company heavily linked with an €800m move for the number two player in South Korea’s cement market. CRH’s much-heralded €6.5 billion purchase of assets being offloaded as part of the mega merger between European cement titans Holcim and Lafarge is due to formally conclude in August. The Dublin-headquartered group is set to become the third largest building materials business in the world on the back of that deal, but management has already suggested it won’t be the limit of its 2015 spending, says the Irish Examiner. Speaking after its May AGM, CRH chief executive Albert Manifold said that the group had a “very strong” acquisition pipeline, which is better than it has been for some considerable time. The group spent €45m in the first four months of the year. The €6.5 billion spend will give it former Holcim/Lafarge assets in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Mr Manifold suggested, at the AGM, that the group currently has a separate €1 billion US deal under consideration and a €700m deal; but also noted that CRH typically concludes around one-in-10 deals which come onto its radar. If those deals came to pass, CRH’s 2015 investment spend would comfortably top €8 billion.
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LIBERTY GLOBAL CONDUCTING DUE DILIGENCE ON TV3 - US-based cable TV giant Liberty Global is conducting due diligence on Irish terrestrial broadcaster TV3 with a view to buying the business. The Irish Times says that according to informed sources, Liberty Global is well advanced with the process but a deal could still be months away, especially as it would require regulatory and ministerial clearance. Liberty Global is owned by wealthy Irish-American businessman John Malone, and already owns the UPC Ireland cable TV, telephone and broadband company. Late last year, UPC acquired Irish wifi provider Bitbuzz for an undisclosed sum. Mr Malone has also invested heavily in property in Ireland in the past few years. This has included buying a number of leading hotels, including the five-star Westin in central Dublin, the InterContinental in Ballsbridge, formerly known as the Four Seasons, and the Limerick Strand Hotel. Liberty Global is also in talks to acquire certain assets from global mobile phone group Vodafone. It is not clear why Liberty would want to acquire TV3, although the US company has a small shareholding in UK broadcaster ITV. It could view the acquisition of TV3 as a means to boost its flagging performance on television subscribers in Ireland, which is lagging behind Rupert Murdoch’s Sky.
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29,000 ARE MORE THAN TWO YEARS BEHIND ON MORTGAGES - The Government and banks have been accused of abandoning thousands of mortgage holders who are now years behind on their mortgage repayments. New figures from the Department of Finance show that a total of 29,070 mortgage accounts were more than two years behind on repayments at AIB/EBS, Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank, Permanent TSB, KBC Bank and ACC in April. The total number of residential mortgage accounts in long-term arrears at the six banks has changed little over the past two months, says the Irish Independent. The six banks are subject to Central Bank targets for dealing with arrears cases. David Hall of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation warned that those in long-term arrears are most at risk of losing their homes. "This long-term arrears figure is where the real issue is," Mr Hall said. "Banks and the Government are spinning good news on short-term, temporary arrears. But they are intentionally not addressing the socially and financially dangerous levels of long-term arrears." He claimed the Government has chosen to prioritise its political future over those in long-term arrears. Mr Hall said recent announcements by the Government for dealing with those more than two years in arrears lacked substance and were about keeping the problem off the news agenda until after the general election.
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UK BANK RULE REFORMERS CALL END TO AGE OF BIG STICK - The cycle of scandal and ever higher fines for banks should be over - provided institutions follow an ambitious suite of new regulatory measures, according to the trio of UK policy makers behind the reforms. “This is a really important inflection point; this is the start of a change,” Martin Wheatley, the head of the UK Financial Conduct Authority, told the Financial Times. He acknowledged that escalating fines were by themselves “not having the desired effect”. “We need something more,” he said. “What this is about is trying to get ahead of the cultural change such that we shouldn’t need those big-stick fines in the future.” When Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, unveiled the Fair and Effective Markets Review on Wednesday, he called time on the “age of irresponsibility”. FEMR recommends a tough new code of conduct and some legislative change to close loopholes and curb the kinds of market abuses that led to the Libor and foreign exchange scandals. But his deputy, Minouche Shafik, who led the review, told the FT that it was too early to predict when banks’ reputations would be repaired. “Banker bashing will end when banks are safe and have good standards of conduct,” she said.
