The rest of today's business stories in brief.
Amarin shares remain steady on IEX debut
Shares in neuroscience company Amarin closed unchanged at €2.05 yesterday after their first day of trading on the Irish Enterprise Exchange (IEX).
The Nasdaq-listed company, which is valued at around €167 million, has taken secondary listings on IEX and London's AIM to improve its profile among European investors.
Amarin's listing brings to 18 the number of companies now traded on IEX.
Ryanair to reduce Swedish flights
Ryanair said yesterday it would reduce the number of flights to and from Sweden after the country's government announced plans to introduce a new tax. The no-frills airline said the tax would increase the average cost of its fares by 30 per cent.
"This is a very sad day for the Swedish consumer and Swedish tourism," Michael Cawley, Ryanair's deputy chief executive, said at a press conference in Stockholm. "We hope this government will see sense and reverse its decision to implement this iniquitous tax."
As of October 28th, the airline will cancel its twice-daily service from Stockholm-Vasteras to Luton in London, reduce flights from Malmo-Sturup to Stansted from twice daily to once a day, and bring down the number of weekly flights from Gothenburg to Glasgow to three from five.
R&O appoints five new directors
Roughan & O'Donovan, the consulting engineering firm that designed the Boyne Bridge on the M1 Drogheda bypass, has appointed five new directors as the company strengthens its senior management team.
The new directors are Tony Dempsey, Marc Jones, Mark Kilcullen, Harry Meighan and Richard Power. They will join existing directors Joe O'Donovan, the firm's chairman, managing director Garry Smyth, John Harkin and Seamus MacGearailt.
Galantas reports gold find at mine
Mining company Galantas said analytical results of a drill core show the presence of high-grade gold at its open-pit mine near Omagh.
The weighted average grade of the company's channel sample from the southern extension of the Kearney vein was 43.94 grams of gold per one tonne of ore over a width of 1.63 metres calculated at a 3 gram per tonne cut-off.
Xstrata raises bid for Falconbridge
The tortuous battle for Falconbridge, the Toronto-based nickel and copper miner, has taken a new turn, with Xstrata, the Anglo-Swiss metals group, making an improved cash bid of $16.2 billion (€12.7 billion). The new offer seeks to thwart an agreed cash-and-shares bid by Phelps Dodge, the Arizona-based copper producer, and Inco, a Canada-based nickel producer. - (Financial Times service)
Blackstone invests in Center Parcs
Blackstone, the US private equity group, is buying a €630 million portfolio of Center Parcs property in Europe as it seeks to revive the fractured leisure centre operator.
It is understood the group is under offer to buy six sites: two in Belgium, three in the Netherlands and one in Germany from a consortium of private investors.
The process of reuniting the different parts of the Center Parcs empire began in March when Blackstone paid €383 million to take private the UK-based Center Parcs operating company.
