Practicenet News

The economy picked-up steam considerably in the first three months of the year led by strong exports. But personal spending fell fractionally in the first quarter, painting a conflicting picture of the recovery as separate data has shown retail sales are on the rise. The Central Statistics Office announced revisions to how growth is calculated

Investors spent more money on big commercial property deals in the first six months of this year than in any previous six-month period, as buyers continued to flood the market. Research from property firm CBRE claims that more than €1.37bn was invested in the Irish market between January and June on transactions of more than

Obama wanted to plan for the key accomplishments in his first term. “Your accomplishment is going to be preventing a second Great Depression”, Geithner responded. As an astute politician, Obama knew that avoiding disaster would not be enough. Here in Ireland, the recent election results have underlined the difficult politics of disaster avoidance. After six

Fresh from his successful Bank of Ireland sale, the US billionaire’s firm has struck a joint venture agreement with Irish investment house Cardinal Capital that aims to raise €400m for property investments. The new fund will be open to new investors as well as those who backed Wilbur Ross, pictured, previously on deals including his

The Department of Finance countered that it is confident Ireland has not broken EU state aid rules. A spokesman said the State’s position would be vigorously defended after EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia announced the much-expected in-depth investigation yesterday. Apple again said yesterday that it had received no special consideration from Irish officials and said

The disclosure, which comes as a major embarrassment to the public service, was made this afternoon. Revenue said the Houses of the Oireachtas Service was among 131 individual taxpayers, companies or bodies which had made substantial settlements – totalling €23.25m – in the first three months of the year. advertisement

The steady drip-feed of global stimulus also kept world shares inching towards an all-time high as another record close for Wall Street and a three-year high for Asia left them heading for a fifth day of back-to-back gains. European stocks were happy to take a breather in early trading after gaining almost 10 percent in

Individual mortgages would not be affected if the accounts – which were bundled together by the bank to be used to borrow on the markets – were taken over by bondholders acting through trustee Deutsche Bank. But homeowners would get a letter telling them of the change. Ulster Bank borrowed against the Irish mortgages during

Anglo lent Clarendon – co-owned by McKillen and Tony Leonard – around $135m to buy the building in 2006. The purchase price was around $170m. Most of McKillen’s loans to Anglo were bought out by US private equity group Colony Capital as part of the sale of the Project Pebble portfolio last year. “Everything is

Irish consumers and visitors are helping to spur activity in the services sector, with a gauge of activity pointing to a “blistering” pace of expansion. The Investec Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) touched 61.7 in May, with any reading above 50 indicating expansion of activity and any figure below 50 showing contraction. The gauge covers