Ireland

Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta has agreed a new €500 million revolving credit facility with three banks and has announced the disposal of its Brazilian businesses, the Irish Times reported. No financial details have been disclosed on the sale of the Brazilian subsidiaries to Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV. The transaction is expected to close shortly. Aryzta said the new credit facility, which is expected to be used by early October, is underwritten by Credit Suisse, Rabobank and UBS. It replaces the group’s current €800 million facility, which maters in September 2022.

Post-Brexit trade frictions have “significantly altered” freight traffic between the Republic and Britain and sparked a steep rise in volumes to and from Ireland and other European Union members, an Irish Government agency report noted on Thursday, the Irish Times reported. The introduction of checks on some goods since Britain left the EU’s trading orbit on December 31st cut imports from Britain by 35 per cent in the first five months of 2021 while the number of shipping routes to mainland Europe more than doubled.

The State’s Covid-adjusted unemployment rate fell to a pandemic low of 13.5 per cent in July, down from 16.2 per cent the previous month, as restrictions on hospitality continue to be loosened, the Irish Times reported. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) had published figures last week, putting the jobless rate at 14.4 per cent but later pulled the release, saying the figures had been compiled incorrectly. The agency said the results for July published today replace the estimates which had been published on August 5th.

Shareholders in Mallinckrodt, the Dublin-based but U.S.-run drugmaker in the middle of a bankruptcy reorganization, are being urged by a leading corporate advisory firm to vote against some directors as a parting rebuke over its handling of the U.S. opioid crisis and executive pay, the Irish Times reported. Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy in Delaware last October as the company was overwhelmed by lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing opioids. The company is pursuing a U.S.

The row over insurers’ failure to pay out on business interruption cover dominates the latest set of rulings announced by the Financial Services Ombudsman, the Irish Times reported. The digest of decisions – the sixth published by the ombudsman’s office – gives summaries of 21 decisions issued during 2020 and 2021, of which 12 relate to the investigation of complaints relating to business interruption insurance. “To date, we have received 1,051 complaints arising from the circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic,” the ombudsman, Ger Deering, said.

Permanent or long-term debt relief arrangements on mortgages “have substantially higher success rates” than temporary arrangements and are in the best interest of both borrowers and lenders, a new research paper published by the Central Bank has concluded, the Irish Times reported. “This is particularly true during a crisis such as that in Ireland after the 2008 crash, where borrower income shocks were deep and long-lasting, and negative equity was widespread,” the paper’s authors Claire Labonne, Fergal McCann and Terry O’Malley have written.

It may be a further 18 months before long-planned new rules are in place to make it easier for regulators to hold senior managers in banks and other financial firms accountable for failings under their watch, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said, the Irish Times reported. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday after securing Cabinet approval to publish the heads of the Central Bank (Individual Accountability) Bill, Mr Donohoe said that it will take up to six months for the planned laws to go through pre-legislative scrutiny with the Oireachtas Finance Committee.

Former millionaire property developer Philip Marley has succeeded in halting the work of a forensic accountant who was appointed as his bankruptcy trustee, the Independent reported. The Irish High Court this week put a stay on a previous order vesting the colourful businessman’s bankruptcy estate in accountant Mícheál Leydon. The move followed claims by Mr. Marley that the appointment was “rogue” and had been “engineered” by an aggrieved creditor, Maven Capital Partners LLP.

Ryanair has reported a €273 million loss for its first quarter even as traffic rebounded during the period, the Irish Times reported. The carrier said that it carried 8.1 million passengers in the three-month period, covering April to June. This compares to just 500,000 in the same period a year earlier. Revenues increased 196 per cent from €125 million in the first quarter of 2020 to €371 million for the same quarter this year. Operational costs also rose, however, jumping from €313 million to €675 million.