PORT FACES 'HUGE CANCELLATION OF SHIPS' AS VIRUS SHUTDOWN BITES - Imports from China will plunge to next to nothing from next week, with disruptions potentially lasting for months, Irish shippers say.
To date, mass factory closures in China aimed at containing the deadly coronavirus outbreak have had a limited impact on Irish supply chains. However, that is set to change as orders that should have been filled during the worst of the crisis have not left port. Dublin Port terminal operators say they are bracing for what one called "a huge cancellation of ships", writes the Irish Independent. Doyle Shipping, which offloads containers at Dublin Port, says its shipping schedule looks normal until next week, when the effects of the crisis become stark. "We're going to start to get next to nothing from China for the next six to eight weeks," said Doyle Shipping director Pat Brennan. His firm employs 250 in Dublin, unloading around 1,200 containers a day from 20 ships a week. He said the planning list of inbound ships shows three vessels that usually arrive from Europe's shipping hub at Rotterdam with Asian goods will stop coming next week. That would mean 600 to 700 fewer containers, which normally bear everything from Chinese garlic to electronics.
"It normally takes six weeks to ship a container from China to Ireland," he said. "From next week on and for the next four weeks, there's a huge cancellation of ships." Mr Brennan may redeploy his small Shanghai office to Vietnam to avoid disruption and build new markets.
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FINANCE IRELAND PLANS €100m STOCK MARKET FLOTATION IN MAY - Non-bank lender Finance Ireland is targeting May for its planned initial public offering (IPO), according to sources.
The lender, in which the State's Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and US investment giant Pimco each own 31% stakes, is expected to seek to raise more than €100 million in the deal, subject to market conditions. The near-term market appetite for Irish financial stocks will be heavily influenced by the shape and time it takes to establish the next government, after the general election on February 8th threw up a virtual three-way tie between Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Fine Gael. A spokesman for the company declined to comment. The Irish Times reported last month that Finance Ireland, led by chief executive Billy Kane, was working with Goodbody Stockbrokers on plans for an IPO this year. Finance Ireland's loan book - including leasing finance to SMEs, motor finance, agrilending and a real-estate portfolio - breached the €1 billion mark in 2018 as new lending grew by 13% to almost €500 million. The company also launched its own home loans product last March, having entered this segment of the market at the end of 2018 with its purchase of a €200 million home loans book from KKR-owned Pepper Money, which was exiting this line of business. Finance Ireland traces its roots back to 2002 when Mr Kane, a former chief executive of Irish Permanent, set up a company called Shared Home Investment Plan (Ship), which offered an equity-release product in Ireland for seniors. The company secured a stock-market quotation in 2006 through a reverse takeover of publicly quoted Ardent and was subsequently renamed Finance Ireland.
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FAMILY BUSINESS TAPS IRISH HONEY BEE - An established family honey farm plans to offer visitors an immersive beekeeping experience at its business near Cahir in Tipperary.
Aoife Nic Giolla Coda runs Galtee Honey Farm, which she took over in 2013 from her father Micheál. He had started beekeeping in 1970 but the farm has since grown to grow the native Irish Black Honey Bees, or Apis mellifera mellifera, a strain of the European Dark Honey Bee. Ms Nic Giolla Coda rears and breeds black queen bees for beekeepers across Ireland and also teaches beekeeping, and makes raw honey and products based on beeswax, says the Irish Examiner. Her father, who was a co-founder of Ireland's first conservation group, the Galtee Bee Breeding Group, is still involved in the breeding side of the business. When the group was first set up, there was a misconception that the native honey bee was extinct. To maintain the native bee populations, however, the group set up a voluntary conservation area across the Galtee Vee Valley. Other Irish beekeeping groups joined to set up the all-Ireland body, the Native Irish Honey Bee Society, in 2012.
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CONCERNS OVER SAFETY AT UK AMAZON WAREHOUSES AS ACCIDENT REPORTS RISE - More than 600 Amazon workers have been seriously injured or narrowly escaped an accident in the past three years, prompting calls for a parliamentary inquiry into safety at the online retailer’s vast UK warehouses.
Amazon, whose largest shareholder is the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, recently launched an advertising campaign fronted by contented staff members, after a string of embarrassing revelations about working conditions. But new figures obtained by the GMB trade union under the Freedom of Information Act suggest safety at its more than 50 UK warehouses has not improved, and may be worsening, says today's Guardian. Local authorities have received 622 accident reports involving Amazon warehouses over the past three years. The annual total has risen from 152 in 2016-17 to 230 the following year and 240 last year. In one case, a self-employed contractor at a London warehouse lost consciousness and appeared to stop breathing following a head injury, having attempted to restart work. The accident investigation report found that sorting baskets had been overfilled and that "the main root cause of this incident was failing to provide a safe working environment". A report covering an incident in 2015, before the period covered by the figures, concluded that a lapse of concentration due to "long working hours" was behind an incident in which a forklift truck driver reversed into a steel structure, bringing some of it down.
