Investment funds needed for 50,000 homes a year, Government warned

Department of Finance officials have warned Minister for Finance Michael McGrath that the Government’s new goal of building 50,000 homes a year can be met only through increased funding from investment funds, the Business Post reports.

The newspaper reports that the department’s finance economic unit says in a memo for the Minister that the State needs a new housing model that can lure “private capital at significant scale” if it is to reach its ambitious target of building 50,000 homes a year.

Taoiseach Simon Harris has promised to build 250,000 homes over the next five years.

The paper says the State will otherwise have to fund or subsidise a considerable portion of the increased spending needed to boost completions from 32,000 to 50,000 a year. However, it says it is prevented from doing this because of EU spending rules.

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The stark assessment, contained in confidential memos sent to the Minister for Finance in February and March, will ratchet up the pressure on Government to outline how it plans to meet the 50,000 per annum target as it battles to address the housing crisis in advance of a slew of elections over the next 12 months.

Truck dealer ‘Pino’ Harris left €233m in will

Truck dealer Robert “Pino” Harris, who died in 2017 at the age of 75, left almost €233 million in his will, the Sunday Independent reports.

The man behind the Hino truck dealership on the Naas Road in Dublin was estimated to have had a fortune of about €175 million at the time of his death, the paper notes. However, a will dated April 22nd, 2024, shows the businessman left an estate valued at €232.7 million to his wife, Denise. She is now chief executive of the Harris group.

Commercial insurance premiums ‘set to fall sharply’ after reforms

Commercial insurance premiums are poised to fall as much as 40-50 per cent in certain sectors this year as businesses finally benefit from a series of insurance reforms in recent times, Colm Kelleher, managing director of insurance and financial planning broker LHK Group, tells the Business Post.

He spoke after his firm agreed last week to acquire rival Finance One to create a business with 20,000 customers.

Mr Kelleher says payouts on liability claims have fallen dramatically in recent years and insurers are now starting to pass on those savings to customers.

Reforms include the introduction of judicial guidelines for personal injury awards, which have resulted in a significant reduction on average awards, and the enactment duty-of-care reforms last July addressing the issue of “slips, trips and falls”.

Central Bank data published earlier this month showed that average premiums earned for all business package policies – comprising employers and public liability and commercial property coverage – rose 8 per cent in 2022 to €2,781, tracking headline inflation, following a level of stability over the two previous years and a 32 per cent jump between 2013 and 2019. However, some sectors suffered much larger rate increases over the period.

Former Quinn hotel in Prague lined up for sale

The Sunday Times reports that businessman Seán Quinn’s former prized Hilton Prague hotel is being lined up to be put on the market in the coming weeks with a price tag of about €280 million.

While Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), formerly Anglo Irish Bank, appointed receivers in 2011 to the company operating various Quinn hotels, it would be 2019 before they managed to take control of the assets, following a legal battle.

Several of Quinn’s former assets have been sold or had sales agreed in the past 14 months. These include Buswells, a hotel opposite Dáil Éireann, the Barge on the Grand Canal, and JW Sweetman on O’Connell Street, the report notes.

Last week saw the Slieve Russell Hotel Golf & Country Club in Co Cavan, the one-time jewel in former billionaire Seán Quinn’s business empire, hit the market with a price tag of €35 million.

Fexco eyes acquisitions as forex business recovers

Kerry-based financial services group Fexco is on the acquisitions trail, its chief executive, Neil Hosty, told the Sunday Independent.

Mr Hosty notes in the interview that the payments and currency exchange business has recovered to pre-Covid levels and is “very much in acquisition mode”.

Operating profits at financial services group Fexco rebounded to €14.5 million in 2022 from €3.6 million in 2021. It was loss making in 2020, when its foreign exchange and payment services businesses slid during the Covid-19 crisis and two subsidiaries fell into administration.

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