Amarin visit a boost for Irish base; Pamela Scott group still feeling the pinch; O’Gara lends weight to Barretstown; Minister in paper fight; changing of the guard at Penney’s; Deutsche Bank sweet on Smurfit
Team Players: O'Gara uses his pull for Barretstown charity
IRISH RUGBY international Ronan O'Gara is pulling his weight in a new corporate effort to raise funds for children's charity Barretstown.
O'Gara was joined yesterday by a number of kids to help law firm Eversheds O'Donnell Sweeney and accountants Ernst & Young announce details of their Big Picnic for Barretstown.
The two firms are organisng a corporate picnic and old style "schools sports day" in Dublin's Herbert Park and are inviting Dublin's business community to enter teams to help them raise much needed funds for the children's charity.
Taking place on Thursday, September 15th, from 4pm, participants will, in the sponsors' words, "get the chance to show off their skills" (read "embarrass themselves") in a three-legged-race, tug o'war, and egg and spoon race, among other offerings during the evening.
This is the third year for the Big Picnic for Barretstown campaign, sponsored by Avonmore, which encourages families, schools, clubs, and businesses to host a Big Picnic with friends and families and raise funds for the charity founded by the late actor Paul Newman, which provides a unique programme to help children affected by serious illness, primarily cancer, regain their confidence and self-esteem.
Anyone interested in taking part can e-mail Ciara at thebigpicnic@ barretstown.org or call 045 864115.
Black out of fashion as Flairline remains in the redLADIES FASHION group Flairline failed to get back into the black last year despite growing sales by 13 per cent.
Flairline Fashions, which owns retail brands including Pamela Scott, posted a pretax loss of €135,265 for the year to August 31st, 2010, after writing off €368,249 of a loan to subsidiary Richard Alan.
This compared to a pretax loss of €1.3 million recorded in the previous year after an exceptional loss of €1.6 million arose on the Richard Alan loan.
Recently filed accounts for the group, which is owned and run by the Barron family, show that turnover rose to €9.95 million, up from €8.79 million a year earlier.
In the accounts, the company's directors describe Flairline's performance for the year as "satisfactory".
The main uncertainties facing the group were identified as: a reduction in the business levels of its subsidiaries due to reduced consumer spending; a reduction in the market values of its investment properties; and increased price competitiveness within the market.
The directors said the risks were being managed by ongoing promotion of the company's products and tight cost control.
However, the company recorded an unrealised loss of €2.5 million due to the revaluation of its investment properties.
Rental profits fell from just over €35,000 to €21,732.
Staff costs fell from €1.2 million to €1.15 million, with the number of employees dropping from 34 to 31.
The company's accumulated profits stood at just under €3.15 million at year end.
Flairline Fashions was founded in the 1970s by Seán Barron, who continues to run the family firm with his four sons.
The group's other brands include Ashley Reeves and Lisa Perkins.
Amarin goes back to its rootsAMARIN, THE Irish drug development group that is on the cusp of a commercial breakthrough, may be moving inexorably across the Atlantic but it has not entirely forgotten its Irish roots.
Amarin chairman and chief executive Joe Zakrzewski and company president John Thero were in Dublin recently to update investors on the timing of the company's impending application to the US Food and Drug Administration to bring its blood fat lowering drug - a purified form of Omega 3 fish oil - to market.
The company will submit its application drug by September and expects to receive approval within 12 to 15 months. This would see it coming to market by early 2013 with the drug, which reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease by lowering the level of triglycerides, or blood fats.
With the company's functional base in Mystic, Connecticut, and both Zakrzewski and Thero at the helm, there is a decidedly American flavour to the company, which was founded by Elan alumnus Tom Lynch.
Zakrzewski is straight up in saying the company's commercial focus - when it secures FDA approval for the drug - will initially be the US market.
There is little surprise in this, with the market for people with extremely high levels of triglycerides amounting to between $4 billion (€3.83 billion) and $6 billion in the US alone. There is also only one serious competitor.
Even more promising is the US market for those with slightly lower levels of triglycerides - where there is no licensed competitor. This is projected to be worth somewhere between $40 billion and $60 billion.
Amarin estimates that fewer than 5 per cent of such patients are being treated with an effective therapy at present.
Still, Zakrzewski has clear memories of the capabilities of the Irish pharma sector from his time at Eli Lilly, noting the state-of-the-art manufacturing plants available here.
And while he is not in a position to promise anything for the medium-term future, he is keen to emphasise the importance of the company's Irish base to its future - particularly when it expands beyond the US market.
Hayes ready to shine 'big fat light' on paper trail
BRIAN HAYES is going to war - on paper.
In March, the Office of Public Works announced it was awarding a €10 million public service stationery and office supplies contract to Codex Ltd, an Irish company based in Glasnevin in Dublin.
Hayes, the Minister with special responsibility for the OPW, estimated the price reductions for any local authority, department or public body taking up the Codex contract at 25 per cent.
"But there's only a 25 per cent take-up," he told the Oireachtas select committee on public expenditure and reform on Wednesday. "Why are local authorities not taking it up?"
More than €15 billion will be spent by the public sector on goods and services this year.
"That's not a sustainable position, when literally half the money we take in from taxes is being spent on goods and services, be it Cork County Council, the OPW, the Department of Defence or whoever," said Hayes, telling the committee he had the full support of his boss at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin. "I want to shine a big fat light on this," he declared.
Some local authorities may have extended supply contracts in place that don't permit them to access centrally procured goods and services, Hayes conceded. But the other possible reason for shunning OPW-arranged contracts could be that the councils feel "a certain obligation to their local rate base", in other words, local suppliers.
"That day is over, I'm afraid. We cannot afford to subsidise employment."
Hayes is meeting a selection of major suppliers in September hoping to echo a cost-saving strategy deployed by his counterpart in the British government, Francis Maude, who achieved £800 million in savings "just by talking to suppliers", claimed Hayes.
Could Hayes and the OPW possibly save over €1 billion by "getting tough" on procurement, then, a fellow committee member asked. "We could," he concluded, a little more nervously than before.
Future looking up for Smurfit Kappa
SMURFIT KAPPA'S paper operations have experienced more volatility than most in recent years with oversupply and competition in the paper market making long-term planning and margin growth challenging.
But at a time when volatility and crisis have become endemic for entire swathes of the economy, it appears that Smurfit's future is looking up.
Deutsche Bank this week initiated coverage of the largest producer of corrugated packaging in Europe and Latin America and marked it a "buy" with a price target of €10 compared to its current price of just over €8.
Despite the macroeconomic turmoil, Deutsche says the supply/demand balance remains favourable for the corrugated packaging sector.
Deutsche expects strong cash flow to help the company achieve significant deleveraging of its debt over the next two years.
It is particularly taken with Smurfit's Latin American operations - apart from its exposure to Venezuela, which Deutsche believes is politically unstable.
Change at the top at Penneys
IT SEEMS there is a changing of the guard at Penneys. Séamus Halford, deputy managing director of one of Ireland's most successful but low-profile companies, has retired.
Halford has been a central figure in the Arthur Ryan coterie which has ruled Penneys for more than 40 years. The elusive former chief executive and current chairman of Penneys poached Halford and current managing director Breege O'Donoghue from Dunnes back in the 1960s, when he took over at Penneys.
They have been at the helm with him since then, charting the group's success in catering to the youngest and most cost-conscious followers of fashion.
The change in management structure, which has naturally evolved at Penneys over recent years, means that Halford's role may not necessarily be filled directly, so any possibility of a radical reshuffle of management at Mary Street is unlikely to be imminent.
While Halford (66) might reasonably be expected to retire after a long and successful career at the top of Penneys, Ryan, who turns 76 next week, shows no signs of slowing down.
According to sources in Mary Street, he remains very much a hands-on chairman.
