Woes mushroom at Donegal Creameries: There are signs of a mess all round at Donegal Creameries, which has been at pains to stress that the issues which led it to seek a temporary suspension from the Irish Stock Exchange this week were "outside its control".

The company has been unable to file its financial results for 2004 because it is still waiting for figures from its 23 per cent-owned affiliate Monaghan Middlebrook Mushrooms. The delay at Monaghan arises from financial issues overhanging since 2003 at Carbury Mushrooms, with which it merged last June.

Billed as a deal to create Europe's biggest mushroom producer, that merger is now causing serious problems for Donegal at a time when it is already grappling with poor conditions in the dairy and potato markets.

But spare the tears. Donegal's claim that the problems with the Monaghan accounts were beyond its control must be seen in light of the fact that the company had a controlling interest in Carbury Mushrooms in 2003.

A write-off of bad debt in 2003 has now emerged for the first time, as well as understated sums for trade creditors and accruals. If such problems came to light only shortly before Donegal expected to receive results from Monaghan, Donegal's own internal systems should have picked them up in 2003.

Despite the claim that the issues were beyond its control, Donegal cannot hide from its 52.5 per cent shareholding of Carbury before the Monaghan merger. As a result, a prior year adjustment will have a negative profit effect of €1.365 million on Donegal's results for 2003, a year in which its pretax profit was €5.93 million.

With a market cap of €42.6 million, Donegal is but a small player on the exchange. Still, the very least that could be expected of any public company is that it should file its results on time. Following a profit warning in January, those results are already set to disappoint investors.

Walsh has nothing of note to declare to LSE

Former Aer Lingus chief Willie Walsh is coming to the end of his first week at British Airways. For the next few months the former pilot will shadow Rod Eddington, the current chief executive, and see how things are done at the airline's Waterside headquarters.

One of Walsh's first tasks was to submit a director's declaration to the London Stock Exchange (LSE). This is information required on the appointment of a new director. The declaration reveals that Walsh's only current directorship is Fyffes plc. The declaration also refers to the former Aer Lingus boss as William Matthew Walsh no less. Very high society.

The rest of the declaration is relatively routine, but British Airways shareholders will be mighty relieved to see that Walsh answered in the negative when asked about "unspent convictions in relation to indictable offences".

Groundhog day for Waterford investors

Waterford Wedgwood shareholders must feel like extras in the movie Groundhog Day these days. Every time they think news of their investment can get no worse, along comes another profit warning or restructuring.

Only six months ago, chairman Sir Anthony O'Reilly urged them to dig deep to pay for the purchase of Royal Doulton. Analysts questioned the wisdom of the deal, but O'Reilly saw a perfect merger and said investors were unlikely to see shares at the rights issue price of six cent again.

Talk about tempting fate. As soon as the put upon investors had forked out the required €100 million and Royal Doulton was acquired, the share price went into reverse. Within six weeks, the whole company was worth less than the €100 million they had paid for their January rights.

Now, shareholders are again being asked to believe in a company that has a long track record in disappointment - with their money, of course.

Another restructuring - the third in just over four years - another €100 million. Only this time, the six cent a share being asked of them is ahead of the price at which the shares have been trading - a new trick for a rights issue.

The question for shareholders is whether this plan is the one that will finally drag the company back to a future. Analysts are uncertain, although they concede that the company has finally taken the radical action that has long been needed ... at least most of the analysts have.

The company's broker, Davy, has been strangely silent - it failed even to mention events at the company to clients in its regular morning briefing yesterday. Interestingly, Davy, which was part-underwriter of the previous rights issue, will take no part as underwriter this time around. Hardly a ringing endorsement.