LINKEDIN EYES IRELAND IP MOVE AFTER MICROSOFT'S €24 BILLION TAKEOVER - LinkedIn is thought to be shifting some or all of its intellectual property to Ireland following Microsoft's $26 billion (€24 billion) acquisition of the professional social media platform.
The relocation of LinkedIn's intellectual property (IP) to Ireland would yield tax advantages for the business and follows a move by other tech and pharmaceutical firms to move their IP to Ireland due to changes in international policies designed to clamp down on tax avoidance. LinkedIn, which has its EMEA headquarters in Dublin, declined to comment on what its precise intellectual property plans are. The company employs 1,000 people in Dublin, and announced plans last year to hire 200 more, writes the Irish Independent. It said that a company just established in Ireland - LinkedIn IP Holdings 1 - had been created as part of "normal business procedures". Shares in the new company are owned by Microsoft Ireland Research. The relocation of intellectual property to Ireland by multinationals has created a headache for the Central Statistics Office (CSO), skewing economic data and resulting in so-called -'leprechaun economics', where Ireland's gross domestic product surged 26% in 2015.
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REPORT SAYS PUBLIC STAFF EARN 40% ABOVE THOSE IN PRIVATE SECTOR - Public sector workers in Ireland earn 40% more on average than their counterparts in the private sector, and that is before any allowance for their pension entitlements and job security is made, new research has found.
The report by Dublin-based stockbroker Davy found that average public sector wages amounted to €47,400 in Ireland. This compared with €33,900 in the private sector. This excludes any allowance for pensions or job security, writes the Irish Times. Davy's calculations indicated that a private sector worker would need to save €590,000 to buy an annuity on retirement that matched public sector career-average salary pensions of €23,000 a year. The figures would be higher for those with defined benefit pensions linked to their final salary. Davy's report - called Public Sector Pay - Avoiding the Mistakes of the Past - noted that the overall size of the public sector pay bill this year is set to rise to €20.6 billion, a level last seen in 2008, the year when the banking and property markets crashed in Ireland. This is in spite of the fact that employment in the public sector in Ireland has fallen to 368,100 currently from a peak of 427,300 in 2008. Davy said that at most around half of this pay gap between public and private sector workers could be attributed to differences in education, experience, qualifications and other factors.
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SHAREHOLDERS CRITICISE BANKS FOR LOWERING BONUS HURDLES - Two of Britain’s leading banks have drawn criticism from some big shareholders over decisions to lower the hurdles for long-term bonuses for their bosses, in the latest example of UK companies coming into conflict with their investors over executive pay.
Some leading investors in Standard Chartered and Barclays object to plans to cut the profit triggers for long-term incentive plans to levels below the banks' own stated targets, says the Financial Times. StanChart has cut the lower threshold for its return on equity - a key benchmark of profitability - in its LTIP to 5%, half the level of the bank’s long-term profit target. Some investors complain that chief executive Bill Winters will be rewarded for delivering an RoE below the bank’s cost of capital. "Executives will be paid when the bank is effectively losing money," said one top 15 shareholders in StanChart. One top 20 shareholder in the bank added: "This is not cool. Do we pay them a bonus for just coming to work?" Barclays' LTIP for chief executive Jes Staley will pay out once the bank hits a 7.5% return on tangible equity, far below the bank’s double-digit profit target.
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UK ENERGY FIRMS INCLUDING BIG SIX MISS SMART METER DEADLINE - Britain's leading energy providers are under fire again after missing a deadline to help households with smart meters avoid being hit with unexpected bills.
Electricity and gas suppliers, including the big six and smaller providers, had pledged that by the end of 2016 they would cut back on sending backdated or catchup bills to customers whose smart meters inaccurately measured their energy usage. However, not one of the big six or dozens of smaller suppliers have met the self-imposed target of cutting the limit for back-bills from 12 months to six months, writes today's Guardian. Every UK home is due to be fitted with a smart meter within four years. These meters provide accurate, real-time billing information to households about their fuel usage, doing away with the need for estimated readings. However, some of the 2 million households already fitted with them experience problems with their accuracy, meaning they can receive demands from their energy provider to make extra payments to cover their actual usage.
