In Short

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Ryanair's traffic grows by 2% as passenger numbers hit 5 million

Ryanair’s traffic grew by 2 per cent last month, according to figures released yesterday. The airline carried five million passengers last month, 2 per cent higher than the 4.8 million carried in December 2009.

The December figures bring the total number of passengers carried by Ryanair to 72.7 million last year, including those passengers who were booked to fly on flights which were cancelled due to the volcanic eruptions in Iceland in April and May 2010.

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The load factor – which represents the number of passengers as a percentage of total seats available – fell by 1 per cent on a month-on-month basis, from 81 per cent in November to 80 per cent last month.

Meanwhile, the airline also announced a new route from Cork to Milan Bergamo. The service will begin on June 2nd.

Facebook generates $1.2bn in revenue

Facebook generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2010 and net income was $355 million according to a 101-private placement memorandum distributed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc to clients.

Copies of the memorandum were hand delivered to Goldman's wealthy customers a little after lunchtime in New York, according to a person who received a copy of the offering memorandum.

The Goldman customer said he received a separate six-page financial statement containing information on the social networking firm.

The financial statements were not audited and offered little detail about how Facebook generates its revenue, said the source, who did not want to be identified.

Asian investors buy EU bonds

Investors in Asia piled into bonds sold yesterday by the European Union to help finance aid for Ireland, according to EU figures.

Asia accounted for 21.5 per cent of the €5 billion of the five-year securities, compared with its 4 per cent average for EU bond sales since December 2008, the European Commission in Brussels said today.

Europe represented 71.5 per cent – with the UK taking 16.5 per cent – and the Americas 6 per cent, the commission, the EU executive arm, reported.

Central banks and other "official" institutions represented 38.5 per cent of the allocation, while fund managers accounted for 24.5 per cent, banks 22 per cent and insurance and pension companies 12 per cent, according to the commission.

Yesterday's sale was the first by the commission through its European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism as part of the EFSMs €22.5 billion share of the Irish rescue. – (Bloomberg)