SEEN OR HEARDFormer minister of state Conor Lenihan is heavily involved in Russia's efforts to build its own Silicon Valley, according to the Sunday Independent.
The former minister for science, technology and innovation in the last Fianna Fáil-led government has since been working for a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, to make the project a reality.
Lenihan, who was likened by the paper to a “one-man IDA”, said the Skolkovo project, which could ultimately cost $80 billion to develop, was heavily influenced by the successful Irish model and it had already attracted research and development operations from 20 multinationals, including Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and Boeing.
He said the project was anchored by a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Glass and tin containers are proving a real moneyspinner for Ardagh, with the former Irish Stock Exchange constituent reported by two papers to be lining up a return to market following a massively oversubscribed bond offering.
The Sunday Times and the Sunday Independent both report that the company could float in the United States at short notice – but they differ on the likely value of the business.
The Sunday Times says a $5 billion float would leave the company with an equity value of about €1 billion once €4 billion of debt is stripped out; the Sunday Independent suggests its value could be closer to €2 billion or even €2.5 billion net of debt.
The big winner would be Paul Coulson, whose family owns about 60 per cent of the business.
Ardagh has been on an acquisition spree recently, with Coulson’s company most recently forking out $880 million for Anchor Packaging, the third-largest player in the US market, significantly ramping up its presence there.
Gaps in cross-Border tax rules have allowed “a global super- rich elite to hide an extraordinary” $21 trillion, the Observer reported yesterday – and that is a conservative figure.
Citing a report by McKinsey chief economist and consultant James Henry for campaign group the Justice Network, the Observer says the figure could be as high as $32 trillion.
Henry says that the top 10 US private banks, including Goldman Sachs and Swiss powerhouses UBS and Credit Suisse, managed more than $6 trillion in 2010, up sharply from the $2.3 trillion they dealt with five years previously.
