A roundup of today's other business news in brief

AIB’s intention to sell stake cited as chief resigns from US board role

Colm Doherty, the managing director of AIB, has resigned as a director of MT, the US-based lender in which AIB holds a 23 per cent stake.

The resignation was announced in a notice to the stock markets yesterday.

A spokeswoman for AIB said Mr Doherty was coming to the end of his term on the board of directors of MT and that, given it is AIB’s intention to sell its stake, he had decided to end his involvement with the bank. The move was not “significant”, she said. Mr Doherty’s resignation was effective as of June 9th.

AIB said it would not comment on the status of its negotiations with possible buyers of both the MT stake and its other assets.

AIB has put its UK division, its Polish unit and its stake in MT for sale as part of an attempt to raise €7.4 billion in capital required under new capitalisation rules laid down earlier this year by the Financial Regulator.

AIB acquired the stake in MT, a regional bank based in Buffalo, New York, after it sold its US subsidiary Allfirst to MT following the John Rusnak rogue trader scandal.

MT recently reported a 135 per cent jump in its first-quarter profits.

Profits down at Ballymaloe House

Accumulated profits at Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe House dropped from almost €2.7 million to just below €2.5 million in the year to October 31st, 2009.

The latest accounts for Yeats Room Ltd, which trades as Ballymaloe House, also show that the company’s cash levels dropped from €1.13 million to just below €920,000.

Its debtors stood at just over €143,000 at year end, up from about €110,500 in 2008. Among these debtors were Rachel and Isaac Allen, and the food company Cully & Sully. The company’s creditors rose from just below €520,000 to more than €565,000.

TV advertising time may be increased

The amount of advertising permissible on commercial television channels could be increased to 20 per cent per day from the current limit of 15 per cent, under new draft rules published by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

If adopted, the maximum amount of advertising time allowed on independent channels will rise from 10 minutes per hour to 12 minutes per hour.

The hourly limit of 10 minutes has been in place since the Broadcasting Act of 1988. However, the Broadcasting Act 2009 allowed for the possibility of a 12-minute maximum for commercial television.