A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Report finds improvement in post times
A report on the quality of the postal service has found that 78 per cent of single piece mail is delivered within one working day nationwide - a two percentage point improvement on the first quarter of the year.
The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) report on the quality of service performance of An Post in the second quarter also found that mail posted outside Dublin is delivered sooner than mail posted within the capital.
The results are still short of the target of 94 per cent set by the regulator.
Directors share €10m in pay
Nine executive directors at Waterford Wedgwood shared a pay packet of €10.2 million in the year to the end of March. The company's annual report shows that executive directors' basic salaries totalled €2.6 million, with the remainder coming from pension payments, benefits in kind and other payments.
The best-paid director was Peter Cameron, who took over as chief executive at the start of this month. He received a total package of €3 million, of which €2.6 million was described as a "success bonus" linked to the €103 million sale of cookware business All-Clad in 2004.
Waterford's retiring chief executive, Redmond O'Donoghue, was paid a total of €1 million last year.
Delta Airlines to cut 9,000 jobs
Delta Airlines yesterday announced plans to cut up to 9,000 jobs and shed almost a fifth of its aircraft in an effort to restore profitability in two years.
The moves follow last week's bankruptcy filing by the third-largest US airline, which has run up losses of almost $10 billion (€8.2 billion) over the past four years as it has lost ground to competitors.
Gerald Grinstein, chief executive, said the measures were intended to "save Delta in the short term" by eliminating unprofitable routes and moving its cost structure towards low-cost rivals such as Southwest and AirTran.
Delta has already cut 24,000 workers over the past four years. - (Financial Times Service)
Pernod Ricard in €100m deal
Irish Distillers' parent Pernod Ricard yesterday announced a €100 million deal to distribute Stolichnaya vodka in the US, Britain, Australia and other markets.
The drinks group, which in July completed its £7.6 million takeover of rival Allied Domecq, also said it had secured exclusive rights to buy the Russian brand should Stolichnaya decide to sell.
The announcement came as Pernod Ricard released its interim results. The Paris-based company said net profit fell 7.2 per cent to €157 million in the first six months of the year.
It attributed the decline to a €20 million one-off expense arising from the preparation of the bid for Allied.
Pernod Ricard reiterated sales figures released in July saying that sales of its wines and spirits increased by 9.4 per cent at constant exchange rates to €1.65 million.
While the group does not break out Irish figures at the half-yearly stage, it did say sales of Jameson whiskey rose 13 per cent in the period.
EU defies WTO sugar rule
The European Union yesterday decided to push 1.9 million tonnes of surplus sugar on to the world market in spite of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling that such exports are illegal.
The move drew strong criticism from other sugar-producing countries, since it means that the EU will sell the sugar from the EU's internal stocks abroad to prevent domestic oversupply. - (Financial Times Service)
