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Digicel investment, Web Summit expenses and our dysfunctional rental market

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

One speaker we definitely won’t be seeing at the Web Summit’s tech conference in June is British historian Guy Walters, writes John Burns in his column

Conn Ó Midheach's face
Conn Ó Midheach
Fri Mar 3 2023 - 06:34

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Digicel, Denis O’Brien’s heavily indebted telecoms group where creditors have moved to take control, plans to invest about $50 million (€47.3 million) in a transformation programme to boost revenues and improve efficiency in an effort to reboot earnings, according to sources. It is understood about half of the planned investment will be provided for in the company’s current financial year that comes to an end on March 31st, with the remainder taken in the next fiscal period. The programme will involve a series of initiatives. Joe Brennan has the details.

In Agenda, Joe Brennan outlines how, in return for a debt restructuring, the tycoon Denis O’Brein is ceding control of the Caribbean mobile phone company he founded in 2001.

One speaker we definitely won’t be seeing at the Web Summit’s tech conference in June is Guy Walters, writes John Burns in his column. The British historian was emailed by its media team in Dublin last Monday, inviting him “to lead discussions on our future-focused panels as a moderator”. To illustrate the importance of the event, Walters was told there would be 40,000 attendees, 1,000 journalists and 500 “top” speakers. However a fee or expenses was not mentioned.

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While the regulation of the rental market has benefited existing tenants, the wider effect of the controls has been destructive, writes John FitzGerald. Smaller landlords have exited the rental business in droves. It’s those now trying to get a place to rent who have lost out. In the short term, regulation has seriously reduced the supply of properties to rent. Falling supply, while demand continues to rise, has driven up rents for new lettings.

Few things raise hackles faster than the touchy subject of using technology to keep tabs on employees. Even the language used to describe it is loaded, with “employee monitoring” considered more benign than “employee surveillance”, which has more sinister overtones, writes Olive Keogh.

“Neither my wife nor I have any family living nearby, so missing my family and Irish friends is the biggest drawback of living abroadI might b. e biased, but the art of good conversation is still strong in Ireland and it’s always good to catch up when I get home.” Conor Heneghan, a senior staff research scientist working for Fitbit, talks to Wild Geese.

The deal is done between the UK and the EU to solve problems with the Northern Ireland protocol, and should it become operational, that deal means Northern Ireland will remain within the EU single market, with the added benefit of access to the UK market. So what will that mean for its economy – and could it have knock-on effects in the Republic?

On our Inside Business podcast Ciarán Hancock and Cliff Taylor are joined by Mark O’Connell, founder of Belfast-based consultancy OCO Global and Stephen Kelly, CEO of Manufacturing Northern Ireland to talk about the deal. Plus: Businessman Denis O’Brien is on track to cede control of Digicel under a plan agreed with a group of bond creditors to swap $1.8 billion (€1.7 billion) of the heavily-indebted group’s borrowings for an equity stake in the business, reports Joe Brennan.