Out of Office: AGMs, financial reports and Taylor Swift
The Business Post gets you up to date with the big stories of the day
Welcome to the Business Post’s Out of Office, your round-up of the day’s business, tech, markets, legal and politics news.
There was a slew of AGM activity today across sectors of Irish industry from banking, to hostels, to building. Kathleen Gallagher was at AIB’s meeting where its chief executive Colin Hunt said he is expecting the commercial real estate market to “stabilise” by the end of 2024. There was also good news for shareholders of the bank. They could be in line for an interim dividend or buyback later this year.
Ahead of its AGM, Hostelworld announced the appointment of a new chair, Ulrik Bengtsson. He is the former chief executive officer of William Hill and chief operating officer of Virgin Media O2. Michael Cawley, the former deputy chief executive of Ryanair, will stand down as Hostelworld chairman on October 21.
Killian Woods reported news from house builder Glenveagh’s AGM that it was on track to deliver 2,700 homes this year.
The comments came the same day as it emerged almost two-thirds of Dublin businesses have lost employees due to lack of housing, reported by Liam Coates.
There were also a number of company financial updates as Smurfit Kappa posted €2.7bn revenues, AIB saw a 27 per cent income boost from higher interest rates, revenues fell at Kerry Group and Q1 earnings soared 91per cent at Avolon.
The slow delivery of the government’s National Development Plan (NDP) is causing problems for Irish competitiveness according Frances Ruane, who would know, as chair of the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council.
Elsewhere there was good news for Irish healthy ready-made food producer NutriQuick who signed a deal worth over €10 million with supermarket giant Aldi, while Taylor Swift songs will be back on TikTok after the social media giant agreed a deal with Universal Music bring an end to a long-running dispute over licensing.
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