This election has taken on a jaded feel. Like ploughed ground being tilled again for the umpteenth time with the same old chestnuts of health, housing, childcare, rural decline and all the other topics that have been around for decades. You cannot blame a cynical electorate for the old refrain that “they’re all the same”. […]

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian lender Banco Daycoval SA is planning to launch an initial public offering in April, in a move that would re-list its shares on the Sao Paulo stock exchange three years after taking the company private, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. The bank’s Lebanese-born founders, Ibrahim and Sasson […]

I was delighted to see Ian O’Doherty defending older people (‘Older people have not ‘stolen your future’, their only crime was a lifetime of paying tax’, Irish Independent, January 28). We are in very dangerous territory when our citizens are turning against each other in ways never imagined before. And ageism is rife. There have […]

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish engineering and construction firm Ferrovial (FER.MC), owner of London’s Heathrow Airport, plans to sell mature assets and buy into water infrastructures and Latin America’s electricity grids, company executives said on Wednesday. The builder, which presented its “Horizon 24” plan for 2020-24 envisaging a rise in pre-tax earnings, will continue developing its […]

Apart from fairly personal party leaders’ debates, the election policy narrative seems to have been essentially reduced to complaints about the funding of health and housing. That ignores the fact that we have one of the highest expenditures per capita on health services in the developed world and also we have one of the highest […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Softbank-backed (9984.T) Fortress Investment Group has raised its offer for Unizo Holdings Co (3258.T) by 27% to 5,200 yen per share after Blackstone Group (BX.N) sweetened its offer as the bidding war for the Japanese hotel operator heats up. U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group (BX.N) on Tuesday raised its proposed offer […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group (BX.N) has raised its proposed offer for Unizo Holdings (3258.T) by 12% to 191.6 billion yen ($1.75 billion), topping a rival bid from U.S. buyout fund Lone Star that is backed by the Japanese hotelier. Blackstone said on Tuesday its improved proposal was worth 5,600 yen […]

(Reuters) – U.S. investment firm Starwood Capital Group said on Wednesday it will make a $485 million all-cash offer for Australian Unity Office Fund (AOF) (AOF.AX) in at least its fourth attempt to buy the property fund manager. A Starwood Capital fund, SOF-XI Legs Holdings, said it will pay $2.98 per unit of the Australian […]

LONDON (Reuters) – Calisen Group, which supplies smart meters to British households, is aiming to sell up to 408 million pounds ($536.28 million) of shares in its planned initial public offering, banks working on the deal said on Tuesday. Owned by private equity firm KKR (KKR.N), Calisen said it intends to float around 25% of […]

Reading about the terribly sad deaths of three children in Dublin can make even the most hardened among us feel almost overwhelmed as we try to make sense of it. The reason why we feel compelled to read about such dark events is that our brains are problem-solving organs and we feel driven to try […]