Fewer than 3,000 homes and businesses have been connected to high-speed internet under the National Broadband Plan in the first 21 months of its rollout, the Business Post reported.
The €5.7 billion rural broadband scheme is now lagging far behind its initial rollout target of making the network available to 115,000 premises by the end of the second year of the contract, which runs until the end of January 2022, and is now aiming to reach just 60,000 premises by that date instead.
As of mid-October, National Broadband Ireland had passed just 17,000 of those 60,000 premises. But of those homes and businesses with access to the network, just 2,700 had signed up and were connected to it by October 27th.
Musgrave performance
Musgrave, the grocery wholesaler and owner of the SuperValu and Centra retail brands, grew its pre-tax profit to €98 million in 2020, as its group sales grew by around €540 million to almost €4.5 billion, according to the Sunday Independent.
Musgrave saw sales soar during the pandemic. Separate to its group sales, its annual results for 2020 show that its retailers in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Spain, which mostly operate as independently-owned franchised stores, reported sales of €6.1 billion in 2020, up €700 million on the previous year.
Net cash at the end of the year grew to €100 million, up from about €8 million.
Big screen debut
Movies@Tallaght will open before Christmas, a decade after the Movies@ chain was outbid by IMC to operate the cinema at the Square shopping centre following the exit of original site operator UCI, reported the Sunday Times. IMC exited the Square last year citing Covid-19 and “significant rent”.
Graham Spurling, whose family own the Movies@ chain, told the newspaper the opening was “a big venture” for the company and comes after a “multimillion-euro” refurbishment that will see the foyer and screens overhauled and two VIP rooms installed. The move comes amid a surge in optimism for exhibitors after audiences were lured back to cinemas last month by James Bond film No Time to Die.
Reduced penalties
Revenue will reduce the tax penalties for holders of secret offshore accounts who come forward voluntarily, according to the Business Post.
Under the current legislation, offshore account holders face mandatory penalties of at least 15 per cent even if they fully co-operate. These mandatory penalties will now be reduced to 3 per cent for those who come forward before they are contacted by the Revenue or make a full admission before a Revenue audit begins. The full penalties of up to 100 per cent will remain for those who try to hide their accounts.
A Revenue spokeswoman said the changes in the Finance Bill before the Dáil were designed to encourage “voluntary compliance” among people who previously had “no incentive” to come forward.
Hotel expansion
Dalata Hotel Group is actively seeking premises in Europe, with Germany, Spain and the Netherlands among the countries where it wants to lease sites, reported the Sunday Independent.
Ireland’s largest hotel group is targeting big cities with a mix of corporate and leisure travel, according to new chief executive Dermot Crowley, who said Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf would be of interest in Germany, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The company, which has 44 hotels and is opening six next year, last week secured a 12-month extension to its €564 million debt facility.
Nursing home exit
Cork investment firm BlackBee is preparing to exit the nursing home sector and has appointed PwC to advise it on a sales strategy for its portfolio of 12 care home properties, the Sunday Times reported. The 12 homes are all based in Munster and in total BlackBee investors control about 700 beds.
“Various transaction types are being assessed,” the firm recently told investors.
The move comes just over two years after it launched a €250 million investment fund that it said would build 1,000 single en suite beds and fund the acquisition of 750 existing beds operating under a new brand, Aperee.
