DATALEX IN TAKEOVER TALKS BEFORE WARNING - Datalex, the troubled Dublin-listed retail software provider to airlines, was in takeover talks with an overseas company before it was forced to issue a profit warning earlier this year, The Irish Times has learned.
Sources said discussions were at an advanced stage but the would-be acquirer had not tabled a formal offer that would have required a stock market announcement by the time Datalex shocked investors on January 15th by saying it had uncovered potential accounting irregularities and expected to post an earnings shortfall for 2018. The company subsequently confirmed in March that a review by outside consultants at PwC Ireland had identified "significant" financial irregularities at Datalex, including that it had incorrectly recognised $3.5m of services revenue and $2.9m of other sales in the first half of last year. Talks with the third party - understood to be another software provider - broke down in the wake of the announcement, according to the sources. While Datalex has been surrounded by perennial speculation that it could be targeted by Spanish technology giant Amadeus or Texas-based software group Sabre, it is understood that neither of these were behind the takeover attempt. A spokesman for the company declined to comment on the matter. Datalex saw its shares tumble by more than 60% between the profit warning and trading in the stock being suspended at the end of April after the group failed to file full-year figures in compliance with market transparency rules.
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IRELAND'S STATE SPENDING MOST EFFICIENT IN OECD - Ireland comes top of the league in terms of the efficiency of its public spending, according to a new study of 36 countries from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that placed the State at the top of its rankings between 2013-17.
The study by the European Network for Economic and Fiscal Policy Research measured the amount of money spent and its outcomes in terms of productivity of the economy and the effectiveness of public administration, health, education and infrastructure. Ireland scored well in large part because its income distribution after taxes is relatively equal and social spending is relatively low at less than 20% of gross domestic product, says the Irish Independent. "Overall, the countries located in the production possibility frontier, hence the more efficient ones in terms of government spending, are: Australia, Ireland, South Korea, Latvia and Mexico," the study found. The study was published amid heavy criticism of the Government for massive overspending on a new children's hospital and of its plans for a €3 billion broadband investment that has been termed inefficient and a waste of money by critics. Ireland's ranking has surged from close to the bottom of its European Union and OECD peer groups in the 1990s and, unlike some European countries that initially reformed and improved, it has sustained its gains in moving well above the EU average. The study also found that Ireland bucked the trend of larger countries in general, being more efficient in their use of government spending.
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NORTHERN IRELAND MOST PESSIMISTIC ABOUT UK ECONOMY, REPORT SUGGESTS - Northern Ireland is the most pessimistic part of the UK when it comes to the economy, a new report has found.
Which?'s first Consumer Insight Report for Northern Ireland includes findings that energy, fuel and Brexit are the main worries for consumers in the region. The research, which was gathered from a survey of 1,009 people throughout the year, found that two in five (42%) believed the UK's economy was in a poor state, and three in five (60%) thought it would worsen in the year ahead, writes the Irish Examiner. Across the UK as a whole, only half (49%) anticipated the economy would worsen. Which? found fuel prices was the issue people in Northern Ireland were most concerned about - with three-quarters (74%) anxious about rising costs compared to two-thirds (68%) in the UK as a whole. Seven in 10 (71%) were worried about Brexit and public spending cuts, compared to six in 10 (61%) and 66% respectively across the UK. Energy bills and the cost of groceries were also among the most common worries for consumers in Northern Ireland - around two-thirds (68%) were anxious about energy and 66% about food prices.
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WOMEN-LED HEDGE FUNDS TRY TO CRACK THE BOY'S CLUB - The ratio of women to men working in the hedge fund industry is one of the most lopsided in all of finance.
Last year, 19.3% of hedge fund employees were women, up from 18.6% in 2017, according to the data provider Preqin. That conceals an even greater imbalance when it comes to people making investment decisions: 48% of the funds’ investor relations teams are women but in portfolio management it is only 10%, writes the Financial Times. And among those actually running funds, women are even rarer. Jamie Zimmerman has been running her event-driven fund since 2000, though its current assets - about $169m, according to regulatory filings - are down from a peak of $3.4 billion in 2014, according to Bloomberg. Leda Braga has overseen Systematica, which trades using computer algorithms and manages about $8.6 billion, since the start of 2015, when she spun out from BlueCrest Capital. One of the more high-profile women in the industry, Samantha Greenberg, closed her fund, Margate Capital, earlier this year to join Citadel. Yet finally there are signs of an infusion of women at the top. Six years after Morgan Stanley’s inaugural event, the number of female managers attending the bank's Women’s Investment Roundtable had tripled. And for the first time ever, many of the highest-profile hedge fund launches this year are led by women. They include: Impactive Capital, an activist investing fund run by Lauren Taylor Wolfe; Snowcat Capital, an alternative risk premia fund run by Rebecca Pacholder; Bayberry Capital, a long-short equities fund run by Angela Aldrich; and Martlet Asset Management, an alternative risk premia fund run by Jane Buchan.
