GREENCORE CHIEFS IN €280,000 SHARE SPREE - Greencore CEO Patrick Coveney and a raft of non-executive directors, including former US ambassador to Ireland Kevin O'Malley, have rushed to support the embattled group after its shares slumped as much as 30% earlier this week.
Even the wife of chief financial officer Eoin Tonge saw a buying opportunity, acquiring more than 20,000 shares in the company, the world's biggest sandwich maker. The food group's shares tumbled after it cut its profit guidance and detailed significant issues at its US business, says the Irish Independent. All the Greencore executives who bought shares this week acquired them on March 14 - the day after its explosive news sent its stock into a tailspin. Mr Coveney bought 68,000 shares for £1.27 each, for a total outlay of £86,360 (€97,415). The wife of chief financial officer Eoin Tonge, Annabel Tonge, bought 20,383 shares at £1.29 each, for a total of just under £26,000 (€29,000). Greencore non-executive director Heather Ann McSharry bought 20,000 shares at £1.27 each, while Mr O'Malley bought 10,000 shares at £1.26 each. Greencore's tumultuous week was arguably the worst for its shares since 2008, when after Mr Coveney was just months into his chief executive role, the group announced that it had uncovered an accounting fraud at a subsidiary in Scotland, Campsie Springs. That saw Greencore shares fall about 20%.
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FINE GRAIN INVESTS €35m IN LIMERICK - Fine Grain Property, an Irish-Singaporean commercial property vehicle, is investing €35 million in a new office development for 400 staff at a Limerick business park used by IDA Ireland to attract technology multinationals.
The new four-storey development at the IDA National Technology Park in Plassey, 6km from Limerick city centre, will take 12 months to construct, Fine Grain says. The scheme is understood to be in the final stages of the planning process, although Fine Grain says it is still open to the idea of tailoring the building for the specific needs of a tenant, if required. The development site was acquired by Fine Grain as part of a €25 million investment that also included three adjacent buildings in the technology park, says the Irish Times. Those are currently occupied by tenants including Cook Medical, clinical research group ICON, and Enet, the sole bidder for the National Broadband Plan. The cost of construction for the new building, which will cover a total of 56,000sq ft, is estimated to be €10 million. Fine Grain is also developing a new office scheme in Galway, while it spent €8 million on an office building at Cork Airport Business Park in December. It also owns developments at the EastPoint business park in Dublin.
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PERMITS TO HIRE NON-EU CHEFS TO 'EASE SHORTAGE' - The removal of some restrictions on chefs from outside the EU working in Ireland will help ease an "urgent need" for 7,000 chefs annually, according to an industry group.
Business Minister Heather Humphreys said she had signed off on work permit changes to make it easier for restaurants and hotels to source workers from outside the EU, and non-EU countries with economic agreements like Norway. "This means that if an employer is unsuccessful in filling a vacancy either domestically or from across the European Economic Area (EEA), it can be filled by a suitably qualified non-EEA national," Ms Humphreys said. Restaurants will have to advertise a job for two weeks before applying for an employment permit for eligible candidates. If there are no suitable applicants, the restaurant can apply for an employment permit for a chef from outside the EU, says the Irish Examiner. Executive chefs, head chefs, and sous chefs, must have five years’ experience at that level, the department said. The number of permits is limited to two per establishment, and an overall quota is set at 610. The Restaurant Association of Ireland said it was "delighted" with the move, just weeks after blasting the Government at its annual conference, where it claimed the industry was "not being given the tools" to address an annual shortage of 7,000 chefs. Despite the restaurant industry benefiting from the reduced Vat rate from 13.5% to 9% in 2011, it has lobbied for more concessions, including a reduction in commercial rates, freezing the national minimum wage until 2021, and a reduction in wine excise.
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UBER OFFERS TRAFFIC DATA IN LICENCE TUSSLE - Uber has offered London's transport authority another olive branch in its battle to regain an operating licence in the city, by opening up its data on traffic and travel conditions ahead of a legal hearing in June.
The ride-hailing app said that regulators and the public would be able to see anonymised information gathered by its 50,000 drivers in the capital. The data, which is available from Thursday, will show travel times during big events and at different times, with the aim of informing transport policy and infrastructure investment in the city. The move comes just one month after Transport for London said it would introduce regulations to force ride-hailing apps to turn over travel data to the government, writes the Financial Times. "We’ve heard feedback from the cities we operate in that access to some of our aggregated data could help inform transport policy and future investments," said Fred Jones, head of UK cities at Uber. "Under Uber’s new leadership we want to be a better partner to city planners and regulators." Uber has been locked in a dispute with TfL since last September, when the regulator revoked its licence to operate in London over concerns it was not a "fit and proper" company because of public safety problems. London is Uber's biggest European market, with 3.5 million users. TfL's decision rocked the company, which is facing a tougher regulatory environment across the EU after the European Court of Justice ruled it should be treated as a traditional taxi business, instead of a technology platform.
