Article Category: Moneybags

Fyffes strange plunge into mushrooms

October 5, 2016

LAST YEAR Fyffes enjoyed a good year’s trading with revenue up 12% to €1.2bn and operating profits up a very healthy 37% to... Read more »

Dermot Smurfit’s high stakes gamble with GAN

September 21, 2016

DERMOT STOPFORD SMURFIT – the 41-year-old nephew of Mick Smurfit – invested and took management control of the gaming software development house, Game... Read more »

Profitable Kingspan needs to avoid distractions

September 21, 2016

KINGSPAN has had a fantastic record over the last five years and is now one of a handful of Irish companies playing a... Read more »

Ormonde Mining’s heavy metal fatigue

September 7, 2016

ORMONDE MINING is an unusual entity, particularly in the resource sector. Its business is developing a tungsten mine in western Spain, a process... Read more »

Cheap Abbey shares stuck in bargain basement

September 7, 2016

THE WAY Charlie Gallagher runs the Abbey house building operation is a poor reflection on Deirdre Somers’s regulation team at the Irish Stock... Read more »

Muldoon’s clean sweep puts FBD on course

August 24, 2016

FIONA MULDOON has really shaken up the FBD Holdings insurance group. It had previously struggled to expand away from its farmer customer base,... Read more »

Mick Carvill survives Kenmare restructuring

August 24, 2016

MICK CARVILL has not had a good record and possibly the most imprudent move he ever made was to decide in 2010, at... Read more »

What’s next for Doyle hotels?

August 10, 2016

PV Doyle’s legacy is a pale image of its past. Instead of dominating the Dublin hotel market as it did 20 years ago... Read more »

Shareholders hit by Aminex dilution

August 10, 2016

THE €25m placing confirmed on August 2 last at an EGM was a real shock for Aminex shareholders. Unlike the desperate position Providence... Read more »

More pain at Providence Resources

July 28, 2016

THE SHAREHOLDERS in Providence Resources had much to be annoyed about last year when a share placing caused significant damage to their investment.... Read more »

Moguls taking on Denis O’Brien

July 28, 2016

IT IS now much clearer what strategy was behind Eir’s decision to buy Setanta Sport. It was not just the building up of... Read more »

Polymetal stake should boost Ovoca

July 15, 2016

THE BIGGEST challenges for shareholders in Ovoca Gold have been the company’s changing nature and the disjoint between its current dominant Russian shareholders... Read more »

Draper Esprit’s potential comes with health warning

July 15, 2016

BOTH Jim Flavin’s DCC and Shane Reihill’s Trinity Venture Capital (TVC) floated on the Stock Exchange as venture capital vehicles but failed to... Read more »

No quick cure for Amryt Pharma investors

June 17, 2016

IN A complete shift of gear, Cathal Friel has turned Fastnet Oil & Gas into Amryt Pharmaceuticals. At first sight, moving from a... Read more »

PTSB launches ‘Explore Account’

June 17, 2016

IN MAY last year the company floated off 25% of Permanent TSB on the Irish Stock Exchange and, in the process, raised €500m... Read more »

Pricey Grafton shares have potential

June 1, 2016

OVER THE last 40 years, Mike Chadwick built up one of the most successful builders’ merchants businesses in Europe. Grafton Group is now... Read more »

Aminex shares now good for a gamble

June 1, 2016

WITH THE much larger and better resourced Petroceltic going down the tubes two months ago, the much smaller Irish exploration company, Aminex, now... Read more »

Paddy Power Betfair shares on very high rating

May 18, 2016

PADDY POWER has been a phenomenally successful business and, following the merger with Betfair, it is in a commanding position in the lucrative... Read more »

Hostelworld’s success could attract competition

May 18, 2016

IT IS hard to believe that the tiny online youth hostel booking business which IT geek Ray Nolan and Tom Kennedy – a... Read more »

Vultures profit from Nama strategy

May 5, 2016

WITH Nama about to flog off two further Irish portfolios – Project Emerald and Project Ruby, with a nominal value of €4.7bn –... Read more »

Tuning in and out of Wireless Group

May 5, 2016

FANS OF Moneybags will recall (see The Phoenix Annual 2015) that the launch of the new TV station, UTV Ireland, at the beginning... Read more »

Manifold impact pushes CRH shares sky high

April 21, 2016

ALBERT MANIFOLD has had a significant impact on CRH since he was appointed CEO in January 2014. He immediately grasped that CRH needs... Read more »

Massive margins at Dalata hotels

April 21, 2016

PAT MCCANN must be feeling pretty lucky, having raised €265m cash in new equity in March 2014 when he floated off his Dalata... Read more »

Food sales key driver for Applegreen

April 7, 2016

UNDER THE management of Bob Etchingham, the fuel retailing forecourt company, Applegreen, has been powering ahead. However, it is now on a very... Read more »

Petroneft battle could bring Oil India centre stage

April 7, 2016

IT IS bizarre that two Irish quoted companies, Petroneft and Petroceltic, should have similar names, operate in the same oil and gas industry,... Read more »

AIB’s profits boosted €1bn by accounting strategy

March 24, 2016

COMING OUT of the recent economic turmoil, AIB appears to be making a dramatically greater improvement than Bank of Ireland (BoI), declaring a... Read more »

Only takeover talk justifies Diageo’s rating

March 9, 2016

SINCE Ivan Menezes got the top job at Diageo in July 2013, taking over the reins from the hugely successful Paul Walsh, the... Read more »

What went wrong at Tullow Oil?

March 9, 2016

OVER the past 20 years, Aidan Heavey has adopted a deliberate strategy of exposing Tullow Oil to the high risk end of the... Read more »

Why Ryanair shares could be flying at €26

February 25, 2016

MONEYBAGS has been watching Ryanair closely in recent months due to its fast rising share price and a rapidly dropping oil price. Given... Read more »

Audacious ‘internalisation’ deal at Hibernian Reit

February 25, 2016

IN RECENT times, Kevin and Bill Nowlan – and the latter’s one-time Irish Life colleague Frank J Kenny, along with Frank O’Neill, Tina... Read more »

C&C’s share buyback programme unfair to investors

February 11, 2016

IT TOOK the US share activist, Daniel Lewis, who runs the Orange Capital hedge fund in New York, to really shake up Stephen... Read more »

DCC’s high energy performance

February 11, 2016

THE €464m takeover of the big French Butagaz liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business is a real game-changer for Tommy Breen in DCC. In... Read more »

Checking out of Dalata Hotels?

January 28, 2016

PAT MCCANN got off to a bad start in Dalata Hotel Group from the time he established it in 2007 up to 2013,... Read more »

I-res Reit benefits from Nama’s strategy

January 28, 2016

THE RECENT sale by Nama of 442 apartments in Tallaght for €83m to the Irish Residential Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (I-res Reit)... Read more »