Today's other stories in brief
Airtricity pays 35m for wind farm in Tyrone
Airtricity is paying an estimated €35 million for a wind farm in Co Tyrone.
Renewable Energy Systems (RES), an offshoot of the McAlpine construction group, has agreed to sell the Slieve Divena Phase II wind farm at Sixmilecross, Co Tyrone, to Airtricity.
The farm has a the capacity to generate 20MW of electricity, enough power for between 6,000 and 7,000 homes.
CRO addresses bounced cheques
The Companies Registration Office (CRO) has introduced new measures aimed at companies that have submitted accounts and other filings but whose cheques for the associated fees have bounced.
The office said the measures were being introduced to “address a growing problem with dishonoured cheques”.
Paul Farrell, registrar of the CRO, said the office was by no means “awash” with bounced cheques. “We’re talking about handfulls. It’s always been a problem but lately it has become more commonplace.”
FBD abandons Spanish land sale
The publicly quoted insurance group FBD Holdings has said it will not be going ahead with a planned €80 million sale of land in Spain as the requisite planning permission would not be achieved in time.
The group said it had “now become clear that the relevant local authorities will not be in a position to complete the process before June 21st”, the deadline stipulated for receiving planning permission on the lands at La Cala, Spain, under the sale agreement.
An earlier element of the sale netted FBD €121 million of which €80 million was paid out to shareholders.
The land at issue was bought by the group in the early 1980s and has not been written up in value on the group’s books since.
Sterling Energy records $175m loss
Falling oil and gas prices left Sterling Energy, the petroleum business in which Denis O’Brien has a 15 per cent stake, with losses of $175.2 million (€123 million) last year.
Sterling said yesterday that “falls of 61 per cent in oil prices and of 25 per cent in gas prices between the end of 2007 and 2008 resulted in lowered fixed asset values and triggered non-cash pre-tax impairment charges of $180.1 million”.
The writedown of its assets left it with a loss for the year, but it had an operating profit of $7.7 million.
Falling prices have also hit its ability to repay debts, which stand at $112 million. It recently agreed a waiver on scheduled repayments with its banks until August.
Cowen announces 1m NUI investment
Taoiseach Brian Cowen has announced a €1 million investment by Enterprise Ireland in the Innovation Value Institute at NUI Maynooth. The funding will support the first phase of the IVI’s Consortium Competence Centre will enable companies with common research interests in the areas of IT services and innovation to find answers to problems in areas such as green computing.
The institute’s consortium includes over 40 private and public sector bodies including Intel, ESB, Microsoft, Xilinx and Ernst Young.
Microsoft critical of Obama tax plan
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on US companies’ foreign profits.
“It makes US jobs more expensive,” Mr Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the US as opposed to keeping them inside the US.”
