Saudi Arabia fund invests in Brown Thomas owner

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has been one of the biggest investors globally in recent years, but it has done relatively little that has related to Ireland. That is changing though, as the fund is taking a minority stake in the company behind Brown Thomas and Arnotts. PIF has truck a deal with Thailand’s Central Group to own jointly Selfridges Group – the parent company of the two Dublin department stores, as well as the London’s Selfridges itself, the fund said in a statement late on Monday. The deal comes after Central Group’s own partnership with Austrian mogul René Benko fell apart last year.
Customer service in Ireland is getting worse with nearly half the top 150 brands performing poorly last year, with Aer Lingus nosediving and Ticketmaster paying for high-priced, hard-to-get tickets. As Conor Pope reports. after two years of rising scores, Ireland’s Customer Experience (CX) score fell by 1.9 per cent with 42 per cent of companies’ overall scores falling, the annual CXi survey of Irish brands published on Tuesday suggests.
National grid operator EirGrid may have to call on emergency power plants to shore up electricity supplies as demand heads for a likely record this winter, a new report is set to show. The State company’s latest Winter Outlook, a snapshot of likely electricity supply and demand for the coming months, shows the risk of any home or business losing power has fallen sharply on previous years. Barry O’Halloran reports.
Barry also reports that regulators have confirmed plans to limit airlines at Dublin Airport to 25.2 million passengers next summer in a move on Monday that faced immediate legal action from Ryanair and may face challenges from other airlines.
In recent weeks we have seen numerous reports on how many homes Ireland needs to ease the near chronic shortage of homes. From 33,000 to 85,000, the range of estimates is huge. But what is the real figure? And why are expert predictions so different? Cliff Taylor unpacks the data.
Irish banks’ profits have soared in recent years along with the surge in interest rates, but is that particular party ending now that the ECB has started cutting? Cantillon looks at what’s next for our lenders, while also assessing what should happen next on the Dublin Airport passenger cap as well as what more than likely will happen.
In Your Money, Dominic Coyle answers a question on when it makes sense to leave a home to someone as a gift instead of inheritance, while Joanne Hunt looks at what tax issues people need to consider if they are moving back to live in Ireland.
In her column, Laura Slattery looks at the rise of articles with the headline “I am an expert..” and what they tell us about the state of media today, along with search engine optimisation.
Northern Ireland’s Wrightbus has agreed a 1,000-bus deal with transport firm Go-Ahead, in a deal worth as much as £500 million (€600 million). The Ballymena-based firm will provide the buses over the next three years, said the company. The deal, the largest in the firm’s history, safeguards 500 so-called green jobs at Wrightbus and will support an additional 1,500 across the supply chain, it added.
A proposal that a small number of EU countries push ahead by themselves on stalled European financial reforms should act as a “catalyst” to jolt others to find agreement on the contested changes, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has said. A Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers from euro zone countries on Monday discussed plans to reform how capital funding moves across national borders within the EU. The long debated changes would make it easier for people to invest their savings and it is hoped as a result unlock billions of euros that could be invested in European companies. Jack Power was on the scene.
Newry-headquartered FD Technologies has agreed to sell one of the core arms of its business to US software company EPAM for £230 million (€274m). The deal for its First Derivatives division is subject to shareholder approval but is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of 2024. After customary closing adjustments, transaction and separation costs, net cash proceeds are expected to be approximately £205 million. Colin Gleeson has the story.
The Galway-based Flannery-owned hotel group provided for a €42.49 million cost in purchasing shares from former shareholders in a deal to resolve a family dispute over how the family’s hotels were run, its latest account show. Gordon Deegan has read them.
An Bord Pleanála no longer stands over planning permission it granted for a new €1.2 billion data centre campus in Co Clare, the High Court has heard. Three local environmentalists and two non governmental organisations (NGOs) brought a legal challenge over the approval of the controversial project set for the outskirts of Ennis. Ellen O’Regan was in court.