Dan White

DIY boom: Woodies staff at their flagship store in Bray, home renovations by remote workers saw the sector do well in lockdown. Photo:Frank McGrath

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Dan White Opinion Retail of two cities as some firms thrive in harsh climate of lockdown

The value of Irish retail sales fell by almost 6pc in February 2021 compared to February 2020, the last ‘normal’ pre-pandemic month for Ireland’s retailers, according to figures last week by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The underlying situation is even worse. When ultra-volatile motor sales are excluded, the value of retail sales was down by a massive 8.4pc in February.

The Central Bank says Davy displayed a lack of 'candour' over dealings. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Dan White Opinion Davy still doesn’t ‘get it’, despite record €4m fine

This weekend Davy, Ireland’s largest stockbroker, faces the most serious crisis of its 95-year history after being fined a record €4.13m by the Central Bank for serious breaches of personal account dealing regulations.

Kerry Group CEO Edmond Scanlon. Photo: Colin O'Riordan

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Delay in ditching Kerry Group dairy arm could risk taste division’s rapidly rising star

The recent short-seller attack on Kerry Group ratchets up the pressure on boss Edmond Scanlon to finally complete the sale of its dairy processing business and then unlock the value of its taste and nutrition arm.

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Delay in ditching Kerry Group dairy arm could risk taste division’s rapidly rising star

The recent short-seller attack on Kerry Group ratchets up the pressure on boss Edmond Scanlon to finally complete the sale of its dairy processing business and then unlock the value of its taste and nutrition arm.

As Ulster Bank prepares to pack its bags the remaining Irish banks will have to cope with a looming acceleration in mortgage principal repayments

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Ulster says go: departing bank leaves behind a sector that is stuck in limbo

With confirmation that Ulster Bank is to exit the market, attention now shifts to the Irish-owned banks.

While the sector is pretty confident it can regain most of this lost ground if the dealerships are allowed to re-open soon, the longer the current lockdown continues, the less likely this is to happen

Motor trade seeks route back from double whammy of 2020

Covid has clobbered the motor trade, with new car sales down 26pc in 2020. With dealerships closed once again the outlook for 2021 remains uncertain.

The fire at Grenfell in June 2017 that killed 72 people.
Photo: Natalie Oxford/AFP

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Focus: Kingspan has to 'get real' over Grenfell

The fallout from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry continues to dog Kingspan with Peter Wilson, the head of its insulation business, announcing his retirement last week.

Widespread Covid-19 vaccinations are not expected until mid-2021. Stock image

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Covid scars may run deep for health insurance providers

With the VHI unveiling another refund for its customers, 2020 is shaping up to be a year to forget for the State-owned private health insurance provider.

Covid-19 has added €2trn to the ECB’s balance sheet and piled further pressure on some southern European countries. Stock image

No miracle cure for Covid's economic fallout

The cost of the pandemic has been astronomical. While it will be some time before all the bills are in, it's already clear that dealing with the consequences of Covid-19 will cost more than anything ever seen in peacetime before.

Larry Goodman single-handedly created the modern Irish beef industry in the 1970s and 1980s, founding the ABP Food Group – his son Mark Goodman stepped down as boss of subsidiary ABP International on Tuesday

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Focus: Can Goodman's empire weather the storm?

Last Tuesday, ABP announced that Mark Goodman, son of Larry, was stepping down as boss of its ABP International subsidiary. Mark Goodman's resignation from ABP International came just eight months after he replaced his elder brother, Laurence, on the board of ABP International's parent company, ABP Food Group.

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Focus: Can Goodman's empire weather the storm?

Last Tuesday, ABP announced that Mark Goodman, son of Larry, was stepping down as boss of its ABP International subsidiary. Mark Goodman's resignation from ABP International came just eight months after he replaced his elder brother, Laurence, on the board of ABP International's parent company, ABP Food Group.

Both Francesca McDonagh at Bank of Ireland (pictured) and AIB’s Colin Hunt have seen an increase loans to retail and property that are now classified as riskier as a result of lockdowns. Photo: Fergal Phillips

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Blackstone sale could be tip of the iceberg for Irish retail property

If you're a company hoping to get bad news out of the way with the least possible fuss, then by far the best time to release it is the Friday of a bank holiday weekend. Hopefully, public interest will have moved on to the next sensational news item by the time everyone heads back to work on Tuesday morning.

At the end of December 2019 Irish households had €110bn on deposit with the banks

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Focus - The cost of saving: How households hoarding cash could impact the economy

Lock everyone up, shut down most businesses and then see what happens. Whatever about the epidemiological impact of the repeated Covid-19 lockdowns, we are also being subjected to an extraordinary real-life economic experiment conducted in real time.

'There are no fewer than 4,700 homeowners who are at least ten years behind on their mortgage repayments - between them, they owe €1.18bn.' (stock photo)

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Living on the brink: What can we do about long-term mortgage arrears?

A dozen years after the crash, 4,700 homeowners are ten years or more behind on their mortgage repayments. With the pandemic set to push overall mortgage arrears levels higher once again, what, if anything, can be done to address the problem of chronic long-term arrears?

Expectation: Origin Enterprises, under new CEO Sean Coyle, blames current woes on bad seasons on 2019 and 2020

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Origin struggles to wow stock market investors with its long-term growing plans

As new boss Sean Coyle gets used to the reins, Origin Enterprises faces the biggest challenge in its 13-year history as a standalone, stock market-listed, company.

Among the early One51 shareholders was Kerry Co-Op, which had a 4.7pc shareholding, Dairygold with 3.14pc and Lakelands with 3.05pc. About 2,000 wealthy Irish individuals also invested in One51 in the hope that Philip Lynch could repeat the success he had enjoyed at IAWS. Photo: Jason Clarke

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The IAWS successor shares are a tale of woe

Backing the IAWS successor companies has resulted in heavy losses for Irish co-ops, farmers and wealthy individuals who made up big shares of each of their shareholders.

Growth: Philip Lynch expanded IAWS’ business by acquiring Bolands. Photo: Jason Clarke

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The saga of IAWS straddles the worlds of high finance and practical agriculture

For over a century, the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society (IAWS) and its corporate offshoots have straddled everything from the mundane practicalities of agriculture to the dizzy wins and losses of high finance.

Transform: Alan Walsh moved from CFO to CEO of One51 when Philip Lynch departed

One51, a Tiger-era tale of ambition's clash with reality

Shareholders will be asked next week to approve the sale of IPL Global, the former One51, to private equity firm Madison Dearborn.

Scaling up: Philip Lynch with One51 chairman Denis Buckley (L)

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More than anyone else it was Philip Lynch who defined IAWS and its successors

Philip Lynch was the central personality in the evolution of IAWS and its spin-offs for almost four decades, with his own personal fortunes closely matching those of the companies he led.

Battles for survival: Kevin Toland is the last Irishman left at top of Aryzta after chairman Gary McGann was ousted last week. Photo: Mark Condren

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Baking bad: The rise and fall of IAWS and Aryzta

The rise and dramatic fall of Aryzta has been by far the most compelling chapter of the increasingly sad tale of IAWS.

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The saga of IAWS straddles the worlds of high finance and practical agriculture

For over a century, the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society (IAWS) and its corporate offshoots have straddled everything from the mundane practicalities of agriculture to the dizzy wins and losses of high finance.

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Are new glass towers part of a Dublin in the rare auld times?

Covid-19 has stopped Dublin's commercial property market in its tracks, with the completion of even well-advanced projects likely to be pushed out well into 2021.

It seems likely that Irish tourist spots such as Dún Aengus will have to increasingly reply on British and mainland European visitors

Pandemic poised to leave lasting scars on Irish economy

As nations throughout the world struggle to limit the spread of Covid-19, they are subjecting their citizens and economies to restrictions that would have been inconceivable only a few weeks ago.

Airline industry faces its worst-ever crisis as virus pummels share prices

Coronavirus has turned what had been shaping up to be good year for airlines into one of the aviation sector's worst-ever crises as nervous passengers put travelling plans on hold.

Rising rents, unaffordable homes and an imbalance between supply and demand have created a cocktail of problems for the country’s next housing minister to deal with. (stock image)

Can Ireland step back from housing cliff edge?

Last Thursday brought a sliver of good news on rents, when the latest report by property website Daft.ie showed that rents fell, only just, by 0.1pc across the country in the final quarter of 2019. While the report is based on a small sample of properties, it is compiled from rents asked by landlords and as a result, is much more up-to-date than most other measurements of the rental market.

Kerry begins 2020 asking what might have been after DuPont failure

For Kerry Group, 2019 was almost the year it truly hit the big time, but management at the food giant will now start 2020 with more questions than answers. In the weeks before Christmas, Kerry seemed to be on the brink of a $26bn (€23bn) deal that would have transformed the Tralee-based company into the world's largest ingredients and flavourings business. But boss Ed Scanlon is dealing with defeat, after rival International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) gatecrashed the party at the last minute. So what went wrong? How was victory seemingly snatched from Kerry's grasp?

Kerry begins 2020 asking what might have been after DuPont failure

For Kerry Group, 2019 was almost the year it truly hit the big time, but management at the food giant will now start 2020 with more questions than answers. In the weeks before Christmas, Kerry seemed to be on the brink of a $26bn (€23bn) deal that would have transformed the Tralee-based company into the world's largest ingredients and flavourings business. But boss Ed Scanlon is dealing with defeat, after rival International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) gatecrashed the party at the last minute. So what went wrong? How was victory seemingly snatched from Kerry's grasp?

Tony O’Reilly Jnr left Providence Resources

The winds of change threatening an end to oil's dominance

On December 6, Providence Resources announced the resignation of long-standing chief executive Tony O'Reilly Jnr. Then, last Monday, Tullow Oil announced that its CEO Paul McDade was also leaving "with immediate effect".

Markets throw a spanner in DCC's acquisition machine

Business services group DCC has been an acquisition machine, with operating profits having risen more than 30-fold since it first floated in 1994. But with almost three quarters of its sales and profits coming from hydrocarbons, is a change of strategy now urgently required?

Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty is seeking to deliver an automatic enrolment programme in Ireland, following a similar move made by the British government seven years ago. Photo: Frank McGrath

Has the time come for automatic private sector pensions?

Regina Doherty has become the latest minister to propose auto-enrolling private sector workers into pension schemes, more than 13 years after the concept was first recommended. On Wednesday, the Cabinet approved plans to automatically enrol private sector workers, who do not already belong to one, into pension schemes.