Weekend Business Papers

Nuala Walsh is a Behavioural Scientist, TEDx Speaker, Non-Executive Director, and award-winning former Executive with three decades in investment management, banking and consulting. She is the Founder and CEO of MindEquity and holds appointments as President of the Harvard Club of Ireland, Chair of the Innocence Project London and Founding Director of the Global Association of Applied Behavioral Scientists. 

Recognised among the Top 100 Most Influential Women in Finance, she held positions at Merrill Lynch, BlackRock, PA Consulting Group and Standard Life Aberdeen. She also served as Non-Executive Director at British & Irish Lions, former Vice-Chair at UN Women (UK), Deputy Chair of The Football Association’s Inclusion Advisory Board, and as an Advisor at World Athletics.

In her new book ‘Tune In: How to Make Smarter Decisions in a Noisy World’, Nuala argues that the most underrated risk facing humanity today is not economic, political or even climate risk – it’s human decision risk. To combat that risk, we must “tune in”. Nuala provides us with the framework for how to do so.

• The Business Post says the government is considering plans to return up to €50 million to struggling businesses as part of a new support package. 

• The Sunday Independent reports that the Central Bank issued a warning to CurrencyFair, stating that they may halt its payment services if regulatory concerns are not resolved.

• The Sunday Times says almost €35 million has gone unclaimed by the families of deceased patients who were in HSE care

• The Financial Times documents the IMF’s warning that Europe would dam­age its eco­nomy if it entered a “sub­sidy race” with the US and China. 

• The Wall Street Journal digs into the trial of former President Donald Trump in New York. 

The Business Post leads with the news that the government is considering plans to return up to €50 million to struggling businesses as part of a new support package. A PSRI rebate scheme is one of several options being worked on to tweak the employers’ tax system as part of a support package to help low-margin firms, which will be announced next month, senior government sources confirmed this weekend. Other front page news is that a rising number of hospitality, retail and construction firms are considering voluntary liquidation as a Revenue deadline for Covid-era-liabilities looms. Over 4,000 companies that each owe over €50,000 in taxes that were warehoused during the pandemic have yet to enter repayment arrangements with Revenue ahead of the May 1 deadline. Figures show the state is still owed €1.65bn because of the scheme. A flurry of investors are working at pace to buy up Ireland’s luxury hotels, with the properties considered safe bets for investment, as they are thought to be “inflation-proof”. Last week, a survey of 60 investors by CBRE, each of whom controls between $5bn and $50bn of assets, showed “a clear preference” for luxury hotels. The vice president of Toyota has said that EU policy makers could have foreseen the stalling uptake of electric vehicles (EVs). He highlighted the role hybrids should play in reaching emissions targets and said that Europe needs to be more open to technologies other than just EVs, describing the political focus on EVs in the region as a “key constraint”. Plans for a new tech accelerator for women entrepreneurs are said to be under discussion, with Microsoft Ireland and KPMG among its backers. TechFoundHer, a collective of over 500 women working in the technology sector, is in preliminary talks with the Department of Enterprise and Enterprise Ireland about the initiative. The collective plans to create a multimillion-euro fund to back the most innovative tech start-ups founded by women.  In brief ● Green leader Eamon Ryan warns of “climate limit” to no. of gas-powered data centres  ● CurrencyFair may be ‘forced’ to cease payments over alleged fraud at a subsidiary firm ● PTBS to be the first retail lender to provide low-cost retrofitting loans under a new gov scheme ● Google set to turn off the “cookie” feature in blow to advertisers and online publications

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The Sunday Independent leads with the government’s commitment to a redress scheme for the families of the victims of the tragic Stardust fire that killed 48 people on Valentine’s Day in 1981. Taoiseach Simon Harris offered an unreserved apology to the families during a meeting with them at Government Buildings on Saturday. Meanwhile, the business pages lead with the Central Bank’s warning to the Irish FinTech firm CurrencyFair. The company has been warned that its payment services could be stopped for up to a year if several regulatory concerns are not resolved. Shamus Hodgson, group CEO at CurrencyFair, confirmed on Thursday that the FinTech was working closely with the CBI and had a remediation plan to resolve the ­regulatory issues. Limerick-based developer Tiernan Properties Group has abandoned the sale of the city’s Arthur’s Quay shopping centre and is instead planning a €200m redevelopment of the landmark site with 300 private, social, affordable, and cost-rental apartments as its centrepiece. MD Michael Tiernan expects to submit a planning application for the development by Christmas or early 2025, with the framework plan expected to be announced by June. Goldman Sachs has upgraded the Bank of Ireland’s stock rating to buy. It said the underperformance of Bank of Ireland’s shares offered potential investors an attractive entry point, especially after the “reset” in net interest income (NII) expectations in the last six months. Its report said that the “more benign competitive environment in Ireland combined with solid capital generation” offered the potential for above-sector capital returns between 2024 and 2026.  In brief ● Investment giant KKR to launch part of its real estate credit services business in Ireland ● Nasdaq-listed Trinity Biotech is hiring biosensor techs in Bray after moving from Kansas ● Councils found to have spent over €400m on buying back houses sold off at a discount

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Simon Harris’s election as ­Taoiseach has boosted public ­support for Fine Gael, The Sunday Times reports, but Sinn Fein remains on course to be the largest party after the next ­general election. The paper’s inaugural Opinions poll also finds that 26% of voters are more likely to consider voting for Fine Gael at the next election. Almost the same proportion, 24%, say they are now less likely to vote for the party, while half the public says it has made no difference. A €40 million reduction in the selling price of the Beckett Building, a prime docklands building in Dublin formerly leased to Facebook owner Meta, shows just how far the commercial property market has slumped. It is one of three high-profile office buildings in Dublin that have entered receivership over the past year, after North Docks 1 and 2 and No. 2 Dublin Landings. The commercial property agent CBRE Ireland has said that despite commercial spending in the first quarter of the year reaching its lowest level since 2012, it expected “considerably higher” volumes throughout the remainder of the year. Almost €35 million has gone unclaimed by the families of deceased patients who were in HSE care. This has raised concerns over what HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster described as “weaknesses” in the management of patients’ money. The health service operates 15,000 accounts for patients at 170 locations across the country, which are known as patient private property accounts (PPP), and in 2022 it held €102 million of patients’ money. In brief ● Deposit return scheme operator is investigating claims of restaurant misuse ● Garda restructuring handling of sensitive intelligence to safeguard national security

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The IMF has warned that Europe would dam­age its eco­nomy if it entered a “sub­sidy race” with the US and China, and policymakers should focus instead on reap­ing gains from lift­ing internal bar­ri­ers to trade. Try­ing to copy the US Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act would per­man­ently knock 0.6% off EU gross domestic product, the fund said in its latest European Eco­nomic Out­look pub­lished on Friday. The EU’s energy reg­u­lator has warned that the bloc still needs to import Rus­sian lique­fied nat­ural gas to avoid an energy shock, advising that: “The reduc­tion of Rus­sian LNG imports should be con­sidered in gradual steps.” This warning comes as a group of mem­ber states seeks to ban pur­chases of the fuel from Moscow. JPMor­gan has warned that the world needs a “real­ity check” on its move from fossil fuels to renew­able energy, say­ing it may take “gen­er­a­tions” to hit net zero tar­gets. In a global energy strategy report sent to cli­ents this week, the US invest­ment bank said higher interest rates, infla­tion and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East had set back efforts to reduce the use of coal, oil and gas. French arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence start-up Mis­tral is in talks to raise €500mn in a deal that would more than double its valu­ation to at least €5bn, fol­low­ing pro­pos­als from mul­tiple investors eager to back the one-year-old com­pany. Ven­ture cap­ital and sov­er­eign wealth funds are among those seek­ing to invest in the Paris-based com­pany, seen as Europe’s best chance of tak­ing on Sil­icon Val­ley groups OpenAI and Anthropic, accord­ing to people close to the talks. In brief ● Sam­sung announced $40bn invest­ment into chip­mak­ing in Texas, including new facil­ity ● Parisians struggling to rent out homes for Olympics as excess listings push down prices ● China’s thriv­ing bubble tea chains plan to go pub­lic and cre­ate a stir over­seas

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The Wall Street Journal leads with the $95 billion foreign aid and weapons package eventually passed by the US Senate. The package is set to be critical to helping Ukraine withstand Russia’s invasion and rearming Israel. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed the bill through despite the objections of many of his GOP colleagues, who are sceptical of Ukraine aid and upset over the lack of US border provisions, some of whom have called on him to resign as speaker. Other front page news is, of course, the trial of former President Donald Trump in New York. “This is an assault on America,” said Trump in the courthouse hallways. “This is political persecution, this is a persecution like never before. It is a case that should have never been brought.” The trial will seek to determine whether Trump is guilty of a felony for having covered up a hush-money payment to an adult film star on the eve of the 2016 election. In stark scenes, a man set himself on fire outside the courthouse on Friday, and was later reported dead. The water sector has been warned it needs to improve its cybersecurity protections as hacking threats grow. The Environmental Protection Agency and the White House met with governors last month and asked them to draw up plans by June 28 explaining how they plan to deal with major cybersecurity risks facing their state’s water and wastewater systems. In brief ● Nasdaq fell 5.5% for week, in worst performance since 2022; S& P 500 dropped 3.1% ● Air-safety officials are pushing to ease fatigue among controllers amid potential risks ● Indian polls opened on Friday in election that Prime Minister Modi is expected to win

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