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Cubic Telecom's €473m investment, the true cost of EVs, and the gender pay gap

The best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

What are the full costs of owning an electric vehicle?

Ciarán Hancock's face
Ciarán Hancock
Tue Dec 5 2023 - 06:29

Japanese giant SoftBank has paid €473 million for a controlling stake in Irish technology company Cubic Telecom, in a deal that will net its founders and private backers a multimillion-euro payout. Ciara O’Brien has the details.

The former head of Bank of Ireland’s mortgage and business banking units, John O’Beirne, has joined US payments giant Square as head of its European operation in Dublin. Joe Brennan reports.

Will an electric car end up costing you more? Fiona Reddan looks at the various costs attaching to the purchase of an EV, everything from the price tag, to insurance and tax, and of charging it up. If you’d like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money, the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.

In our personal finance Q&A today, a reader who is a first-time buyer is looking to purchase a second hand home and wonders if the Government will extend the Help to Buy scheme to such properties. Dominic Coyle offers some guidance.

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In her column, Laura Slattery looks at the gender pay gap in the Irish media sector and ponders whether this year’s round of reports on the issue will show much progress.

After six months of faltering growth, activity in the State’s dominant services sector picked up in November, suggesting demand conditions in the Irish economy have improved, according to the latest AIB services PMI data. Eoin Burke-Kennedy examines the findings.

Irish sports data group Orreco has unveiled a new app to help connect coaches and women athletes in a bid to identify patterns potentially linked to their menstrual cycle and help them train more effectively as a result. Ciara O’Brien has the details.

Last week the CSO revised downwards Irish GDP figures, putting us in full blown recession territory. Should we be worried? Cantillon looks at the numbers.

In Me & My Money, mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught recalls how when Covid lockdowns were announced in 2020 “all my upcoming contracts were cancelled. It was a hard pill to swallow”. She was speaking with Tony Clayton-Lea.

The huge outperformance of the so-called magnificent seven – Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta – has been, as Goldman Sachs notes, a “defining feature” of 2023. How concerned, then, should investors be by their valuations? Proinsias O’Mahony offers a view in our Stocktake column.

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