Current Account: Now that Elan has offloaded a significant portion of its shareholding in Ligand for more than $70 million, it must be casting a wishful eye over its other major equity shareholding - its stake in Galen.
Shares in the Northern Irish drugmaker have enjoyed a good run in the last fortnight, gaining nearly 19 per cent in Dublin since the release of a strong set of second quarter results in mid-May.
Elan holds around seven million Galen shares, or 3.8 per cent of the company, worth some €57 million at Wednesday's close.
However, despite Galen management's expressed interest in buying back the block of stock, Elan has said that it is not in a position to sell the stake.
This is because the shares in question are held in a securitised vehicle and are being used to support debt obligations due for repayment in two years' time.
Under the rules surrounding the securitised vehicle, the Galen shares cannot be sold before March 2005.
Elan, under investigation by the SEC for its complex accounting, has managed to find its way around more complicated structures in the past.
But even if it is not in a position to realise to the value of its stake - acquired as part of Galen's share-swap takeover of Warner Chilcott from a number of investors, including Elan, nearly three years ago - the investment gains should show up positively in its second-quarter results.
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Kenny was chairman of the bored
Irish companies are, not for the first time, running against the international trend. At a time when chief executives are feeling the heat in the corporate world, it is the chairmen who are vacating their boardroom seats on the domestic front.
Just a day before Kerry Group chairman Denis Brosnan gave his valedictory speech before a devoted audience at its annual general meeting in Tralee this week, Paddy Power's leading light Stewart Kenny announced his intention of switching seats with non-executive director Fintan Drury.
Like Mr Brosnan, Mr Kenny was seen as the embodiment of the company he led, having taken it from a newly-formed merger of small bookmakers to the largest player in the Irish market.
And, in common, with the former Kerry chief executive, he agreed to move "upstairs" in the interests of continuity as the company's image had been so entwined with his own.
But both men have found it difficult to take a step back from the action. Stewart Kenny in his usual forthright manner, explains a decision that took most people by surprise. "It's very simple, I'm not a chairman type. I'm a hustler and that's what I'm good at."
Doesn't sound like a man laden with regrets.
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Stena buy boosts ICG
The acquisition by Stena of some of the P&O routes on the Irish Sea is good news for Irish Continental Group. The reason being that both capacity and competition will be reduced on what is termed the "central corridor".
Merrion analyst John Mattimoe reasons that Stena will probably close one of the P&O routes - Dublin to Mostyn - and try to redirect the traffic onto Dublin to Holyhead, where it will be introducing a larger ship this summer.
This is positive news for ICG as Stena would otherwise have had to take market share from ICG and Norse/Merchant (the other operator on the route) if it was going to make the extra-capacity pay.
As Merrion put it: "...the market is now much better structured, which should ease the intensity of price competition in the market and reduce the risk of opportunistic capacity additions". Roughly translated, this means good news for ICG and bad news for Irish exporters.
