Other financial stories in brief
Poor debut for Thomson
Shares of global information company Thomson Reuters fell in their debut yesterday on concerns over a financial industry downturn.
The new company, formed by Thomson's purchase of Reuters for more than $16 billion (€10 billion) in cash and stock, hopes its portfolio of products, ranging from financial to legal and healthcare, will help it ride out the credit crisis. - (Reuters)
Michelin investing €14m to upgrade Ballymena plant
The French tyre maker Michelin is to invest £14 million (€17.5 million) at its Ballymena plant in a move designed to help it secure new business contracts, writes Francess McDonnell.
The investment package will see new state of the art manufacturing equipment introduced at the Northern Ireland division.
Graham Whitehurst, Michelin's factory manager in Ballymena, said the French group also planned to introduce a staff training programme.
No new jobs will be created by the latest investment boost but Michelin says the package will support current employment levels.
More than 1,000 people are employed at the Ballymena site which manufactures heavy bus and truck tyres.
Parlon attacks doom reports
Ireland's economy has been severely damaged internationally by reports of impending economic doom, the Construction Industry Federation director general said yesterday.
Tom Parlon said it was important to take a balanced view of the prospects for Ireland's economy and not concentrate disproportionately on the downside risks.
Asking prices decline 15%
Asking prices for houses have declined 15 per cent during the year to the end of March, according to a survey by NCB Stockbrokers and property website MyHome.ie.
In the first three months of 2008 asking prices declined 1.4 per cent. This follows a fall of 0.2 per cent in the previous three-month period.
Nokia signals down beat tone on weakening dollar
Nokia said yesterday it expected the cellphone market would fall in euro terms this year due to the weakening US dollar, knocking more than 13 per cent off its shares.
The world's largest handset maker reported underlying first-quarter profit rising as expected.
But a bigger-than-expected fall in its average selling price for phones also weighed on the stock.
The Finnish company cut its forecast for the cellphone market value due to changes in the currency market, but repeated that a boom in emerging markets would lift shipment volumes by 10 per cent from 2007. - ( Reuters)
Exports growin euro zone
The euro zone swung to a trade surplus in February from a deficit the previous month and a year earlier as exports grew faster than imports despite a strong euro, EU statistics office data showed. Eurostat said the 15 countries using the euro had an €800 million trade surplus in February against an €11 billion deficit in January.
