Today's other stories in brief
Jelly Bean Factory wins top award
Aran Candy, the business better known as the Jelly Bean Factory, last night won the overall Small Firms Association small business award for 2008.
The business, which was started 10 years ago by Peter Cullen and his son Richard and is due to move to a larger manufacturing plant in Dublin shortly, received a €15,000 cash prize.
Other award winners were: Ecocem (manufacturing); Home Instead Senior Care (services); Atomic Sports (outstanding small business); Easy Fix Rubber Products (innovator of the year); and CCP Recruitment (HR development award).
Payments made, says 'Voice'
The Voice newspaper group, which is backed by wealthy philanthropist Niall Mellon, said yesterday that all payments due to the 40 staff that it made redundant last week had been processed through internet banking.
It said the money would be credited to bank accounts in the "normal timeframe".
This was in response to a statement from the National Union of Journalists stating that the payments had not been lodged into bank accounts by the agreed deadline of yesterday morning.
The Voice last week closed four weekly newspaper titles - its publications in Kildare, Tipperary, Cavan and Monaghan.
The union said it would continue to press for union recognition and for "proper wages and conditions" in the remaining Voice Newspaper titles in Kilkenny, Galway, Laois and Tallaght.
Standard Life profits rise 43%
Insurer Standard Life beat forecasts with a 43 per cent rise in 2007 profit and surpassed its own key efficiency target, as charges including a hit from customers leaving early were offset by surprise annuity gains. Prospects for Standard Life, Britain's fifth-largest insurer by market value, have been clouded by a failed 2007 bid for rival Resolution and the departure of a top UK executive.
Yesterday's figures went some way to ease concerns, boosting its underperforming shares by as much as 14 percent. Analysts and investors, however, said the performance did not mean worries over broader strategic issues had been resolved.- (Reuters)
More hedge funds run into trouble
Another three big hedge funds have been forced to close down or to suspend investor withdrawals as the credit squeeze persists.
Drake Management, a $12 billion New York manager, wrote to investors in its three hedge funds yesterday offering them the choice of winding up the funds after about half asked for their money back.
Global Opportunities (GO) Capital, a €560 million Amsterdam hedge fund, said it would block withdrawals until the end of the year to prevent firesales of shares in small Benelux and German companies.
It also emerged that Blue River Asset Management, a Colorado-based hedge fund manager specialising in municipal bonds, was to shut its main fund after nearly 80 per cent losses, even after raising $110 million for a fresh fund. - (Financial Times service)
Employers upbeat on hiring staff
Employers continue, on balance, to be more inclined to hire staff than to let them go, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey. It states that 11 per cent of Irish employers expect to hire more staff in the coming quarter while 5 per cent predict they will let staff go in the next three months. Eighty-two per cent do not anticipate any workforce changes. Ulster employers are currently the most optimistic with those in Connaught the most downbeat.
