WEEKEND DIGEST:The Sunday Business Post states that the chief executives of Ireland's major banks will be summoned to a meeting at the Central Bank this week.
The paper suggests the Government is pressing lenders to move more quickly in doing deals with mortgage holders in difficulty. Ministers are understood to be particularly aggrieved that the lenders have been so slow to avail of the options outlined in the Keane report on personal debt.
Having got an injection of new capital to help absorb losses, they want the bank to reach “realistic deals” with distressed mortgage holders rather than trying to hold on to high levels of debts, it states.
* Retailer ChampionSports is still struggling to deliver a profit, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
In its results last week, the group’s most recent owner, UK-based JD Sports Fashion, disclosed that the Irish concern made a pretax loss of £116,000 in the year to last January on sales of £36 million. For the record, the paper states that Champion made a profit of £800,000 in the second half of the financial year.
But the more interesting figure to emerge from the accounts is the €29 million in debts that were written off by the sport’s company’s bankers, IBRC (the former Anglo Irish Bank) to facilitate the takeover – effectively a discount of up to 60 per cent.
* Tesco, thegiant retailer feeling the heat from institutional shareholders over poor performance in its home market, is looking to take on online giant Amazon, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
It says the chief executive Philip Clarke new strategy, to be unveiled on Wednesday, will feature a new online service which, it is reported, could rival Amazon.
Customers visiting the retailer’s website will be able to buy goods from rival retailers for the first time as Tesco looks eventually to create an online shopping mall where it receives a cut from every sale made.
