Goldman Sachs’s tax free funds; a distillery raffle; and a BER scale for sustainability

Three so-called "vulture funds" affiliated with Goldman Sachs collected €390 million from their portfolios of Irish distressed property loans in 2019 but incurred no corporation tax charges. Mark Paul has the details.

Mark also reports on a Louth gin distillery, recently valued at €1.7 million, which is raffling a 5 per cent stake in the business to raise cash for marketing and to help fund additional production equipment.

Purchasing activity in the construction sector increased in May at the sharpest monthly rate since February 2016, as the lifting of lockdown restrictions unleashed a wave of activity in the sector.

Working from home is increasingly seen as part of the future and two separate studies – one Irish and the other international – found that close to half of those surveyed would either not accept a new role if the employer did not offer some form of remote working, or would actually leave their existing job on the issue.

Remote working a deal breaker for close to half of job candidates

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Plans for new 54-bedroom hotel in Dublin’s north inner city approved

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Running clubs, You days, skip level meetings - the remote working challenge

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El Salvador becomes first in world to make bitcoin legal tender

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Covid landed a blow on boxing world champion Katie Taylor after the company handling her commercial interests recorded a loss after several years of strong profits. However, KT Sports Ltd did take the opportunity to snap up three investment properties worth a combined €754,850. Gordon Deegan has the details.

Plans for a new 54-bedroom hotel in Dublin's city centre have been approved, in part because the site was considered unsuitable for residential housing, writes Seán McCárthaigh.

In his column, Eoin Burke-Kennedy argues that an increase in the rate of corporation tax to 15 per cent from our current 12.5 per cent will not fundamentally undermine Ireland's efforts to encourage foreign direct investment.

And Pilita Clark examinesthe growing pressure to put manners on an always on culture that expects staff to be available for decidedly non-essential emails and other work out of hours.

Finally, Michael O'Hara argues that when it comes to sustainability and carbon footprint, consumers need a BER type accessible scale to be able to fairly compare the green credentials of competing products.

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