More than half of Irish estate agents see house prices levelling off soon
rise by a further 5 per cent
over the next 12 months, amid ongoing supply shortages, according to a survey of estate agent members of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI). Joe Brennan reports on the predicted growth.
However, 60 per cent of those polled see prices levelling off soon, with a further 18 per cent saying that they have already peaked – after a dozen years of continuous growth.
Joe Brennan also reports on Goodbody Stockbrokers making
a number of senior hires
in a bid to boost the business. A number of staff left the organisation's investment banking area in late 2023, during and after a redundancy programme.
Among the appointments is Stephen Kane, a former corporate finance director with the firm, who left in October 2023 for householder Cairn Homes.
READ MORE
In her latest column,
Pilita Clark
writes about the really concerning thing about the Coldplay concert scandal. This scandal, of course, concerns the former CEO of tech company Astronomer, who was caught with his arms wrapped around the company's head of human resources. Their embrace was captured on the big screen at the band's concert in Boston and has gone viral. Pilita Clark addresses the barrage of fabricated online statements purporting to be from those with insight.
'Some governments are trying to legislate against this muck, notably in the EU. The Coldplay couple — and the misleading maelstrom that followed their exposure — are a reminder that many more authorities need to join them,' she says.
The co-founder of Dublin restaurant group Kinara and president of the Restaurant's Association of Ireland, Seán Collender, revealed
the details of the impact of rising input costs
that are leaving hospitality businesses on 'an extremely fine line'. 'These are huge, huge costs and we don't sell gold bars, we sell food,' he told Hugh Dooley.
We need to enact a specific legal mandate, in the overriding national interest, to drive forward critical projects and avoid the endless round of planning applications, appeals and judicial reviews. Had we done that for the metro, it would have been finished a decade ago, writes
John FitzGerald
in his weekly column.
'But unless the planning system is reformed, I'm unlikely during my lifetime to ride the metro or drink Shannon water from my tap,' he says.
How will the updated National Development Plan shape Ireland in years to come?
Listen |
35:59
In 2025, it is both remarkable and disappointing that progress in tackling the gender gap in leadership is taking a backwards step in Ireland, with a 24.8 per cent year-on-year drop in women hired into top jobs here.
There are no women leading any of the major Irish companies listed on stock markets, writes
Sue Duke
, vice-president of global public policy at LinkedIn, in our Business Opinion slot.
If you would like to read more about the issues that affect your finances, sign up to
On the Money
, the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
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Trade deal fallout and how to start accumulating wealth
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
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Paul Coulson: The high-wire financier who cut his teeth restructuring the Trinity Ball
Financier Paul Coulson built Ardagh Group into a big force in glass and metal packaging by being one of the most nimble Irish movers in high finance over the past 25 years – funding well-timed acquisitions with even better-timed forays into the high-cost global junk bond markets. At its peak, Ardagh Group had a market valuation of $6.7 billion (€5.8 billion) four years ago, before it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. That put Coulson's indirect 36 per cent stake at $2.4 billion. Yet Coulson's high-wire financing would ultimately catch up with him. The total $12.5 billion of borrowings Ardagh Group was ultimately left carrying became too much to bear as it grappled in recent years with inflation, soaring interest rates and soft consumer demand on both sides of the Atlantic. It led to a major restructuring – unveiled on Monday after months of tough negotiations with various classes of creditors – that will see a bunch off bondholders take control of the group in a debt-for-equity swap. [ Paul Coulson faces last stand in battle to retain control of Ardagh Opens in new window ] Coulson, former and current managers and a small group of investors – believed to run into hundreds – who stayed with the company for more than two decades, after its previous life on the Dublin stock market, will share $300 million (€249 million) of go-away money. It may be hard to feel sorry for them. It is understood that Ardagh Group's soon-to-be former shareholders will have shared in excess of $2 billion over the years by the time they exit – between debt-fuelled dividends and share buybacks, a windfall from the sale of the leasehold on its original base in Dublin 's Ringsend just before the 2008 property crash, and the $300 million pay-off. Coulson, known to friends as the Cooler from his university days, has been the main beneficiary. The businessman cut his teeth in the world of commerce by restructuring the finances of the Trinity Ball in the early 1970s while at college. The Dubliner started his career as an accountant with Craig Gardner (now part of PwC) in London. In 1982 he set up Yeoman International, an aircraft leasing and investment firm, where he executed a deal six years later that he would regret. After Yeoman International forked out £93 million sterling for CLF Holdings, a British leasing company to small businesses, it quickly became apparent that it had bought a dud. Bad debts in a unit of the company soared as the UK economy soured. Coulson turned on his advisers on the deal, merchant bank SG Warburg. He sued the bank and secured an out-of-court settlement of £35 million. In targeting a business more than six times the size of Ardagh by value, Coulson set the funding template for what would underpin billions of euro of subsequent deals: leverage Soon after, the Irish Glass Bottle Company, which traced its roots to 1932, was in his sights. He bought an initial stake and took over as chairman in 1998. Within a year he started off on a road to transform the sleepy company – by then renamed Ardagh Plc – with a single glass plant in Dublin and its two furnaces through the acquisition of Rockware, then Britain's largest glass bottle maker, for £247 million. In targeting a business more than six times the size of Ardagh by value, Coulson set the funding template for what would underpin billions of euro of subsequent deals: leverage. Some 375 workers at the Irish Glass Bottle plant lost their jobs when Coulson closed the facility in 2002. The following year, he engineered a deal that would split the group in two. Ardagh Glass, a company he subsequently used to build his glass and drink cans empire, was taken private. The other, South Wharf, remained listed, with one major asset: the leasehold on the 24-acre glass bottle site in Dublin. South Wharf and its shareholders went on to share two-thirds of the €411 million proceeds from the sale of the site as the property boom neared its peak, in 2006. Almost two decades later, the site is finally under construction. Ardagh Group's largest deal was its $3.4 billion purchase in 2016 of a bunch of beverage can manufacturing plants that US packaging group Ball Corp and UK peer Rexam were forced to sell to get competition authorities to allow their merger. Coulson secured a New York listing for that unit, called Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP), in 2021, leaving Ardagh Group with a 76 per cent stake. He delisted Ardagh Group, the parent company, the same year – as equity markets were prepared to give metal packaging businesses a higher valuation than glass. AMP, whose sales and earnings have recovered strongly in recent quarters, even as the glass business remains under pressure, became the centre of a major battle in recent months. Originally, Coulson wanted to give bondholders control of the struggling glass business, while he and other legacy investors would retain an 80 per cent stake in AMP. Talks along those lines broke down in late May. The final accord will see Coulson – who has extensive other assets – hand over 92.5 per cent of the group to senior unsecured creditors, who are owed $2.39 billion, and 7.5. per cent to a group of lower-ranking debt investors, known as payment-in-kind not holders. They are owed $1.98 billion. Major bondholders that are set to become shareholders include: California-based Franklin Templeton, which is best known from taking a major bet on Irish government bonds at the height of the financial crisis; Wall Street giant JP Morgan; and New York-based Monarch Alternative Capital. The restructuring is expected to be completed by the end of September. Coulson might have gone down the legal route to assert rights over AMP, as it was a so-called unrestricted subsidiary of Ardagh Group, separated by a holding company that was set up in April 2022. In the end he opted for a consensual arrangement with the $300 million pay-off. The deal also avoids a change of control at the AMP level within the group, which would have resulted in its own $3.69 billion of bond debt automatically falling due for repayment.
Irish Times
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Minister for Justice to tell Cabinet preferred candidate for next Garda Commissioner
The identity of the next Garda Commissioner is set to be confirmed after the Cabinet meets on Tuesday. Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan is expected to recommend a candidate who has emerged from the recent recruitment process to replace the current commissioner, Drew Harris . Mr Harris, who was first appointed in 2018, will continue in the role until September 1st. The Irish Times reported last week that, according to sources, the number of senior Garda officers who applied for the commissioner's job was relatively low. The post was advertised in May and carries a salary of at least €314,000. READ MORE However, both serving deputy commissioners, Justin Kelly and Shawna Coxon, are believed to have applied. Separately, Minister for Energy Darragh O'Brien is to brief colleagues on the issuing of letters to the boards of EirGrid and the ESB on the Government 's approval of up to €3.5 billion additional investment in electricity infrastructure as part of the National Development Plan . The investment is split into €2 billion for EirGrid, to support the financing of the offshore electricity grid, and €1.5 billion for ESB to support the onshore grid. Mr O'Brien will also brief Ministers on the summary of draft legislation to support the development of forestry 'corridors' for the electricity network. This come after the damage and disruption caused by Storm Éowyn in January, which exposed the vulnerability of parts of the electricity network to fallen trees. The goal of the Bill is to outline a statutory regime for the development of forestry corridors, including additional vegetation management powers for ESB Networks and to provide for regulations on the dimensions and conditions of corridors. The draft legislation follows consultation with the departments of agriculture and housing, forestry organisation Coillte and ESB Networks. Consultation with forestry and landowners will take place during the drafting of the final legislation. The Cabinet will also be updated by Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary on the planned introduction of the Government's pensions auto-enrolment scheme – My Future Fund – from next January 1st. A chief executive for the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority will be announced shortly along with board members. Under the scheme all employees aged between 23 and 60 earning more than €20,000 per year and who are not paying into a pension scheme will be automatically enrolled into My Future Fund. Minister for Housing James Browne will brief colleagues on 2023 statistics from local authorities and other State bodies on the percentage of their employees who have a disability. In 2023, public-sector bodies were set a minimum target of having people with disabilities make up 3 per cent of their workforce. All but one of the 31 local authorities and 14 other public bodies under the aegis of the Department of Housing met the 3 per cent target. In 2023, 33 bodies had already reached the 2024 target of 4.5 per cent, including 18 bodies that had already met a 6 per cent target to be achieved by 2025.
