Waterford-based Dawn Meats’ $250 million New Zealand dollars (€128 million) bid for control of one of New Zealand’s largest meat exporters is facing a last-minute challenge from a group of prominent shareholders.
New Zealand’s Alliance Group’s 4,300 farmer shareholders are due to vote on Dawn’s offer for 65 per cent of the debt-laden cooperative next month.
An independent appraisal from New Zealand investment bank Northington Partners just last week backed the Alliance board’s assessment that Dawn’s offer was the most credible available and a failure to accept it could result in forced asset sales and possible insolvency. Nigel Stirling reports.
A significant proportion of Irish workers, particularly women and parents, are feeling more stressed because of their employer’s return-to-office policies, new research from Irish Life has revealed.
READ MORE
Based on a survey of more than 1,000 people nationally, the insurer’s latest annual Health of the Nation index reveals that one in three workers is feeling at least some pressure to work in the office more than they should.
Women are more likely to feel the pinch, according to the data. Ian Curran had the details.
It offers free GP and A&E care, lower cost prescriptions, as well as dental and school transport services. Not only that, but medical cards may also entitle their holders to reduced rates of income tax. However, the Department of Finance is undertaking a review, so what does this mean, asks Fiona Reddan.
Newspapers and other non-broadcast outlets have long prized their editorial distance from the State. They subscribe to a self-regulation code overseen by the Press Council and the Office of the Press Ombudsman. They are not licensed and they do not receive core public funding. Broadcasting has a different history.
Where the ground has shifted, writes Hugh Linehan in his column, is in Coimisiún na Meán’s growing role as a direct funder of journalism. It has launched schemes to subsidise the hiring of reporters covering local government, the courts and “underreported” subjects.
Silicon Valley’s difficulty over US H-1B visas could be Ireland’s opportunity. The silver lining could be that Europe is suddenly a more attractive place for investment. Only 213 of the new H-1Bs issued last year were to Irish workers; three-quarters of the new visas last year were issued to workers from India. Could some of the investment in jobs intended for the US make its way to Ireland instead?
Cantillon also notes that Sinn Féin bit back at a claim last week by Minister for Housing James Browne that the State was now delivering 50 per cent of all new homes. Browne indicated that approximately 15,000 of the 30,000 new homes delivered last year came either directly via local councils or indirectly through Government-funded Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency (LDA) and/or other state supports and grant schemes. But Sinn Féin‘s housing spokesman Eoin O’Bróin claimed the Government-supported total was closer 10,000.
A reader writes: I am dealing with my mother’s affairs after she died. She had shares in a company called Great-West Lifeco and I am not sure what to do with them. Ideally, I want to sell them and put the funds to her estate but can I do that when they are in her name? If not, what do I do? Dominic Coyle answers your personal finance questions.
Markets are supposed to run on fundamentals. In reality they often run on fashion and on FOMO, according to a recent study. The study introduces a Global Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) index, built from Google searches for terms such as “buy stock”, “missed out”, “get rich quick” and “Bitcoin price”, writes Proinsias O’Mahony in Stocktake.
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.
