More business news in brief.
Dorgan to head up Ulster Bank
Former IDA chief executive Seán Dorgan is to succeed Dr Alan Gillespie as chairman of Ulster Bank Group.
Mr Dorgan, who is currently deputy chairman of the group, served as chief executive of IDA Ireland from 1999 until last year and has also been chief executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.
He was recently appointed to a number of senior non-executive roles including chairman of Tesco Ireland and director of Short Bros plc, FBD Holdings and Fineos Corporation. He will assume the role in September. - Bloomberg
Heywood issues results warning
Heywood Williams Group plc, the UK supplier of plastic doors and windows which bought Dublin-based Avenco Group for €23 million last year said its results will "significantly" miss estimates as a real estate slump continues in the US and Europe.
Heywood Williams fell 6.27 pence, or 46 per cent, to 7.48 pence, cutting the company's market value to £6.4 million (€8 million).
Heywood Williams gets about 80 per cent of revenue from selling building products in the US and Europe, the Huddersfield, England-based company said in a statement yesterday. On a like-for-like basis, excluding last year's purchase of Avenco Group, revenue dropped 11 per cent. - Bloomberg
Karelian up 37% on diamond find
Karelian Diamond Resources said it had recovered 67 diamonds from a 100-gram (3.5-ounce) Finnish sample, potentially clearing the way for expansion. Shares in Dublin-based Karelian rose 1.88 pence, or 37 per cent, to 7 pence at the close in London yesterday, the largest advance since January 25th, 2007, valuing it at £3 million (€3.7 million).
Ninety-four per cent of the stones from the Seitaperae mine had "good" white or off-white colour and 91 per cent had a "high" level of preservation, Karelian said in a statement . "This is a very positive result," chairman Richard Conroy said. Seitaperae "compares well with many recent discoveries worldwide," he added. - Bloomberg
Sofia bank posts profit increase
Bulgarian-American Credit Bank AD, in which AIB has a 49.99 per cent stake, posted an increase in second quarter profit when compared with the first quarter as lending rose.
Second quarter net income more than doubled to 31 million lev (€15.98 million) from 14.7 million lev in the first three months of the year, the bank said yesterday in a filing to the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. Lending rose 10 per cent in the first half of the year.
Allied Irish Banks Plc agreed in February to buy a 49.99 stake in the Sofia-based lender for €216 million. - Bloomberg
Industrial production slows across eastern Europe as exports decline
Industrial production slowed across eastern Europe in May as the economies of its main trading partners in the West sputtered, cooling demand for the region's exports. Slovakia, Hungary and Romania reported slowing industrial output yesterday, following Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
Outside the EU, emerging markets including Russia and Turkey also posted weaker growth, or declines.
"The statistics are pretty ugly," said Raffaella Tenconi, an emerging-market analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in London.
"Domestic demand in eastern Europe is still brisk but there's a slowdown in demand for exports. The worst part of the cycle will come in 2009 when this has an impact on employment."
Higher borrowing costs and accelerating inflation in western Europe are damping demand for industrial products from the east. - Bloomberg
