Business

Davy has been voted Ireland’s No 1 brokerage in the Thomson Reuters Extel Pan-European Survey 2012. The survey is considered the leading benchmark for excellence in investment banking and is the largest professional investment opinion assessment in the world. The firm also took the No 1 slot in the key category of Ireland Equity Sales. Tim Cahill (Construction & Building Materials) and Stephen Furlong (Transport) had impressive individual performances at a Pan-European level achieving top-10 analyst rankings in their respective sectors. The 2012 Thomson Reuters Extel Survey ran from 19 March to 4 May 2012. It reflects the contribution of over 2,100 buy-side firms, 2,500 analysts from 270 brokerage firms/research…

Well-known TV personality Martin Lewis is set to become £87million richer today in a deal to sell his website, MoneySavingExpert, to a rival. The website, which was set up for £100 nine years ago as little more than a ‘homepage’, is to be sold to MoneySupermarket . Under the deal, Lewis will receive receive £60m upfront in cash and shares plus a further £27million if targets are met under the deal. He has also pledged to give £10m to charity. A hugely popular site, in the year until 31 October, it had 39 million unique visitors and generated revenues of £15.7m in the same period. Under the takeover deal, Mr Lewis…

IDG Connect has announced that the company is establishing a new base for operational support in Dublin, creating about 125 jobs. Located on Great Strand Street, Dublin 1, IDG Direct will play a pivotal role in helping IDG Connect understand global buying behaviour. The group, headed by general manager John Moran, has recently recruited 60 positions and the organisation is looking to grow to around 125 positions by the end of 2013. The roles will be across data analysis, campaign management and telephone research. “A key part of the Government’s plan for jobs and growth is ensuring that we deepen and develop the impact of multinational companies here,” said Minister…

Davy has acquired Bloxham’s asset management business which manages assets exceeding €700m in value. The deal, together with the acquisition of Bloxham’s private client business, announced last March, adds approximately €1.2bn to the value of assets under management by Davy. In Ireland Bloxham’s funds are distributed by both Irish Life and New Ireland and these relationships, together with Bloxham’s asset management team, led by Pramit Ghose, will now transition across to Davy. “Davy is pleased to acquire two profitable and established businesses from Bloxham,” said Tony Garry, chief executive of Davy. “The transition to Davy is a very positive development for Bloxham’s asset management clients who will continue to be…

A quarter of Irish businesses do not track employee mobility at all and the majority do not know if their employees will avail of the new foreign earnings deduction tax relief introduced by Finance Act 2012, according to a survey launched today by PwC, which has also announced a new app to track employee mobility. In the survey, 33pc of respondents said they have no international employee mobility policy in place. Twenty-four percent reported that they do not track employee mobility at all. Just 14pc said they track employee mobility using specialised technology. Knowledge transfer (57pc) was the top business driver for having a mobility strategy.  This was followed by…

Sky is launching its “Summer of Sport” campaign in Dublin today with GAA star Bernard Brogan. The campaign, valued at €1.2 million, will run on TV, print, outdoor, and online from May to July. The campaign features boxer Katie Taylor, Kilkenny hurling star Henry Shefflin, Dublin GAA star Bernard Brogan, Paralympian hand cyclist Mark Rohan, and Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given.  Filmed as they were training, the TV ad captures the energy and effort these athletes and players have put into preparing for the summer tournaments. This year sees one of the most exciting summers for sporting events with the Euro 2012 Championships, the Olympic Games, and the Irish…

Croke Park Stadium has announced that the Etihad Skyline tour on the roof of the historic ground will open to the public on Friday, 1 June. Sponsored by Etihad Airways, the roof-top tour of Croke Park boasts spectacular panoramic views of Dublin city and its surroundings from 44 metres or 17 storeys above the ground. With an investment of over €1m and the creation of 10 jobs, the opening of the Etihad Skyline at Croke Park is expected to bring even more visitors to what is already Dublin’s most visited attraction. Some 100 tonnes of painted galvanized steel have gone into creating a 0.6-kilometre walkway, which was fabricated in Portlaoise…

An interactive tutorial for improving Spanish has won the senior animation category in the national Scratch competition, which gives primary and secondary school students the chance to learn how to use computer programming. 2nd year students Eleana Skelly and Kate Campbell from Alexandra College Dublin were declared winners for their project ‘Learn Spanish’. Returning winner Abdullah Mohammed from Carrigaline Community School Cork was declared winner of the Scratch Competition National Finals Senior Games Category. His 2012 winning entry is a multi level maths tutorial game. This annual competition is run by Lero (the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre), sponsored by the Irish Computer Societyand hosted in IT Tallaght. The finals…

Irish bookseller Eason is soon to launch an own-branded e-reader, a spokesman for the company has revealed. This comes the wake of Monday’s announcement that Waterstones with link with Amazon to sell Kindle e-readers and create wi-fi areas in-store where customers can download e-books. Eason had already stated it would create dedicated wi-fi areas where customers could download e-books from the Eason website as part of a €20m plan to modernise the chain. However, this is the first time the company has stated it will launch its own branded hardware. The move will be similar to that implemented by US bookseller Barnes & Noble, which has its own branded e-reader,…