Biden’s budget; bonus blues at Paddy Power; and the Big Four’s gender pay gap

US President Joe Biden has unveiled a proposed budget that looks to unravel some of the Trump era cuts in corporation tax, double the minimum tax paid by US multinationals on their foreign earnings and get more revenue from the wealthiest in the United States. Martin Wall reports from Washington DC.

Closer to home, top executives at Paddy Power parent, Flutter Entertainment, are out of pocket after missed targets meant their bonuses were cut dramatically. Barry O’Halloran has the details.

German industrial gas giant Linde is behind one of the largest commercial transactions ever to come before the Irish courts as it seeks sanction for a €72 billion reorganisation of affairs due to its Irish domicile and its plans to move from a dual listing in New York and Frankfurt to a single US listing. Arthur Beesley reports.

Partners are skewing the figures on the gender pay gap at Ireland’s Big Four accountancy firms. Work correspondent Emmet Malone says the disparity at partner level is obscuring progress being made elsewhere in Ireland’s top professional firms.

Helping offshore energy developers factor the impact on nature into their planning process

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Google Pixel 8a review: It follows predecessors by removing unnecessary features while still being useful

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Interruptions undermine workplace focus and productivity

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It seems an improbable odyssey for London to ever become the new Silicon Valley

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Providing Covid-19 quarantine facilities for the Government paid off for hotel group Tifco as it bounced back into profit to the tune of €10.9 million in 2021 after more than doubling its revenues to €25.8 million, according to newly-published accounts for the group. Gordon Deegan looked at the numbers.

The average interest rate on new mortgages shot up in January, rising 24 basis points in one month in response to the European Central Bank’s ongoing cycle of rate increases – double the increase in December. Ireland still has among the lowest average mortgages rates in the euro zone, writes Eoin Burke-Kennedy but they are going to rise further over coming months.

And staying with interest rates, Ireland’s debt management agency, the NTMA, had to offer the highest return in nine years to investors as it sold €800 in bonds due for repayment in 2037 against the backdrop of rising borrowing costs globally in the battle to tame inflation.

Among others feeling the pinch is Aviva’s Irish general insurance unit which saw operating profit slide 26 per cent last year amid rising claims and less return from new personal injury settlement guidelines than might have been expected. Joe Brennan reports.

Better news for Hammerson, the British retail property investment group that is a part-owner of Dundrum Town Centre as well as the Ilac Centre and Swords Pavilions, which narrowed its losses to €184 million last year, writes Laura Slattery, as the sector continued its recovery from the pandemic.

Spar and Eurospar brand owner BWG Foods plans 60 new stores across the State over the next two years as it reports a 4.5 per cent rise in spending by customers last year.

Aviva Cohen got into business by accident, developing rehab aids for her husband after a catastrophic stroke. She talks to Olive Keogh and the successes and failures along the way and her plans for SeamlessCARE, her latest venture.

Australia appealed more to outdoorsy Irishman Mark Dalton more than the United States but it was a chance meeting on a backpacker’s holiday in Vietnam that sealed the deal. He tells Olive his story.

John FitzGerald writes that, in 2021, the amount paid out in legal fees by the State Claims Agency amounted to 15 per cent of the total income of the legal profession. There are much better things we can be doing with that €140 million, he argues.

Finally, John Burns discusses the repossession crisis that has yet to arrive, how Government is tapping into influencers, a jaundiced view of Apple’s Irish business, green fuel and looming change at RTÉ.

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