Seen & Heard: Revenue investigating ‘major tax issues’ at IBRC

The Revenue Commissioners are investigating a "number of major tax issues" at the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), according to the Sunday Business Post, which reports that it could lead to a significant settlement.

The paper said IBRC's special liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson, were in talks with the Revenue over settling any of the former bank's potential tax liabilities.

Some of the issues date back to its former incarnation as Anglo Irish Bank, but include the period after January 2009 when it was taken over by the State.

While the Revenue Commissioners themselves have discovered some of the problems, the liquidators have also uncovered a number of tax-related issues.

The news comes as Wallace and Richardson begin sifting through the bids for the €3.5 billion Project Evergreen loan portfolio.

Intel's new 'superfab' plant
Intel's Irish and Israeli divisions are slugging it out in the final stages of a battle to be the group's chosen location for a giant high-tech chip-manufacturing plant that would attract investment of more than €7 billion.

According to the Sunday Times, the group's site in Leixlip, Co Kildare, which employs 4,500 people, is in play for the "superfab" plant, along with Intel's facility in Israel, which regularly competes against the Irish operation for investment.

The group's newly appointed chief executive, Brian Krzanich, and chairman, Andy Bryant, visited the Leixlip plant recently, but a spokesman declined to comment on the purpose of their trip, the paper said.

Now Factory sale
Irish technology entrepreneur Tom Morrisroe is set to reap €74 million from the sale of his business, the Now Factory, to global giant IBM. Morrisroe owns about 80 per cent of the company, which he founded in 2007, and which the US multinational is buying for $125 million (€92 million), the Sunday Times reported.

Morrisroe will get 80 per cent of the cash, while Russian investor Stan Danilov will also get a return, as will a number of the company's managers, who have some shares in the business, the paper said.

State agency Enterprise Ireland put €450,000 into the Now Factory last year in the form of convertible preference shares.

The businessman was also a shareholder in Arantech, which was sold in 2008 for almost €80 million.