ESB INTERNATIONAL AGREES €30M IN MIDDLE EAST DEALS - ESB International (ESBI), the global consulting arm of the State energy incumbent, is gearing up for a period of significant growth following a series of new contract wins, including projects in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
The company will today announce it has won a €17 million contract to manage the construction of a Saudi gas plant, along with 50 megawatts of solar capacity. It has also this week secured a €12.5 million sub-station contract in Bahrain, writes the Irish Times. The Saudi project, which will be revealed at ESBI’s 40th anniversary event in Dublin Castle, is part of the “Northern Promise” investment programme that was championed by the late King Abdullah to economically reinvigorate the undeveloped northern part of the world’s biggest oil producer. The project will involve the dispatch of 40 ESBI staff to Saudi over four years, as well as training 15 Saudi engineers in Ireland. Ollie Brogan, managing director of ESBI, said the company was targeting the Middle East for further growth. He said ESBI beat off competition from consultancies in Australia, Canada and Europe to land the Saudi deal. ESBI employs 750 staff, some 650 of whom are based in its Dublin office, although this number will rise with a number of coming projects.
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BOOKMAKERS LADBROKES PARTS WAYS WITH MAN REVIEWING ITS IRISH UNIT - Ladbrokes said the executive heading the bookmaker's review of its ailing Irish operations is leaving. Chief executive Jim Mullen said Damian Cope, who leads the company's international division, will move on because the unit is no longer necessary. Eight other people working for the unit could also lose their jobs, says the Irish Independent. Mr Cope's departure follows a review of the team's costs and efficiency, Ladbrokes added. Ironically, Mr Cope has led a review of Ladbrokes' Irish division which was placed under examinership in April. Plans for the Irish business remain on hold until that process is completed, Ladbrokes added yesterday as it unveiled the plans to allow the company's other overseas units to operate independently. Before his departure was announced, Mr Cope carried out the strategic examination of the bookmaker's Irish operations codenamed 'Project Athru'. Ladbrokes, which employs 1,400 here, told staff earlier this year that "standing still is not an option". It put the Irish unit into examinership a few weeks later. The Irish division recorded a loss last year. Ladbrokes said yesterday that it no longer needs an international division.
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REVENUE GAINS €315m IN PENALTIES AND INTEREST - Revenue has collected €315m in penalties and interest over the past three years as part of a crackdown on non-compliance since the economic downturn. A windfall of close to €71m has been collected in penalties alone since 2012, €30m of which relates to last year. That figure pales in significance to the level of interest payments over the same period, however, says the Irish Examiner. Last year the interest bill, which totalled €87.5m, came in at almost three times the amount garnered from penalties. Over the three years of figures released to Fianna Fáil finance spokesperson Michael McGrath, Revenue took in €242.9m in interest payments. While acknowledging Revenue’s duty to impose penalties on businesses which fail to make timely payments, Mr McGrath described the interest as “crippling”. “The rate of interest applying to late payment of taxes is certainly punitive and can have a crippling effect on businesses. It is staggering that over €300m has been paid to the Revenue in the 2012 to 2014 period by way of interest and penalty charges, with penalties increasing by 76% and interest by 39%.
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GERMAN HOTEL GROUP OFFERS ULTIMATE LUXURY - CHECK IN TO CHECK OUT OF WEB - Desperate times call for desperate measures. One luxury hotel company has come up with the ultimate way to help its guests to relax: a switch that kills the internet. A silver switch next to the beds in the Villa Stéphanie spa resort in Baden-Baden activates a copper grid in the walls to block all wireless internet signals, reports the Financial Times. "It is like a light switch,” said Frank Marrenbach, the chief executive of the Oetker Collection, which also runs Le Bristol in Paris, the Hotel Du Cap in Cap d’Antibes and will open a renovated Lanesborough hotel in London on July 1. So far around half his guests have opted, at some point during their stay, to kill their internet. The move may seem extreme, given that simply switching off connected devices would achieve the same end. But Chris Baréz-Brown, an author on work-life balance, said most of us cannot control our urge to sneak a peek at our screens. “We are not very good at managing our behaviour,” he said. “You only have to look at alcohol, cigarettes, sugary drinks, television watching or gaming. We are going to see a lot more ideas like this. There will be zones where people disconnect, a lot more businesses will suggest for certain times of day people don’t email and so on. There is a lot of research that suggests our multitasking is making us shallower,” he added.
