100,000 BORROWERS IN LINE FOR LOAN WRITE-OFFS AFTER ILLEGAL LOAN CASE - Thousands of people with loans from moneylenders could be in line to have their borrowings wiped out and get compensation.
It follows a case won by a Donegal couple who took on the State's largest moneylender through the financial services ombudsman. They had loans from Provident Personal Credit, but were illegally offered new loans before they paid off the old ones. The couple complained to the ombudsman, won their case, and got compensation, says the Irish Independent. They had £4,370 (€6,780) in loans written off, and were awarded £450 (€698) each in compensation. The ombudsman's written finding, which has been seen by the Irish Independent, lists the monetary amounts in sterling. Now experts say that up to 100,000 people who are estimated to have had their moneylender loans illegally rolled over into new loans could be in line to have them written off and receive compensation. In 2013 the Central Bank found that a quarter of the more than 360,000 customers of moneylenders were offered new loans before they had cleared their existing one. It is thought that even more people are now borrowing from moneylenders.
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BUILDING SECTOR OUTSTRIPS GROWTH ACROSS EUROPE - The Irish construction market is expected to record the strongest rate of growth across 19 European countries up to 2017, according to a new forecast. The report reveals that Ireland, which represents less than 1% of the total output among Euroconstruct members, showed the highest rate of growth across the region last year at 9.9%. Euroconstruct is a professional network of institutes in 19 countries that produces biannual publications covering the key construction sectors of civil engineering, residential and nonresidential construction, says the Irish Times. The Euroconstruct report forecasts that after the most severe contraction in output across member countries, the Irish market is expected to continue to grow at the strongest rate with an average expansion of 10.6% between 2014 to 2017. Growth will be driven by recovery in both residential (up 14% to 2017) and nonresidential (up 12%) construction, albeit from an exceptionally low base. It is anticipated that new residential construction will aid recovery with new completions expected to reach 17,000 by 2017. Overall construction volume growth across the 19 countries this year is forecast to be 1.9%. European construction volume growth is then expected to accelerate in 2016 to 2.4% and 2017 to 2.6%.
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CAMEL RACING AIDS FIRM'S EXPANSION - Cork-owned Mervue Laboratories is investing €2m into new manufacturing facilities and plans to increase its staff count by 25 to 75 people in Watergrasshill in the next three years as part of a huge expansion of its animal nutrition business. The company, with bases in Bulgaria and Lithuania, also plans to open a manufacturing facility in the Netherlands and open a sales office in the US next year, writes the Irish Examiner. Mervue has had particular success in the Middle East and the Gulf where it sells its own nutrition products for the huge camel-racing industry there. “We make the equivalent of electrolytes and probiotics nutrition products, but only they’re for camels,” said William Twomey, commercial director at Mervue. “We got the idea when we were out there selling nutrition products for horses when we were asked why we were concentrating on the 4,000 horses when there was 140,000 racing camels. Camel racing is the equivalent of our Liam McCarthy Cup.”
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SURVEY TAGS G4S BOARD AS FTSE'S WORST BUT IoD STUDY REVEALS FALSE IMPRESSION - G4S - the UK outsourcing and security group involved in scandals over Olympic Games staffing and offender tagging - has the worst performing board of directors of any British company, according to new survey assessments. In a survey of 400 business people, who were asked by the Institute of Directors and Cass Business School to rate UK companies on their corporate governance, G4S was deemed to come bottom of all FTSE 100 groups, preceded by Sports Direct, and then Royal Bank of Scotland and Tesco. However, the report found that perceptions of companies were often misleading, reports the Financial Times. When the IoD and Cass Business School measured corporate governance using their own set of criteria - such as board effectiveness, auditing and remuneration - G4S and RBS moved to around the middle of the table of FTSE 100 companies. Tesco also moved higher. Sports Direct remained the second worst performer, though, in the view of the IoD and Cass - just above Babcock, which had the worst score based on their criteria. In the case of G4S, Sports Direct, RBS and Babcock, it was poor relationships with shareholders that lowered corporate governance scores. For Tesco, it was concern over auditing and external accountability, the research found.
