IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 1 July
01-07-2008
by Sylvia Leatham
Avocent cuts Irish jobs | eBay ordered to pay EUR40 million for sale of fake goods
The Irish Times reports that Australian investment firm Babcock Brown, whose Babcock Brown capital fund owns Eircom, has won a reprieve from its lenders, sending its shares up as much as 18 percent on Monday. Two-thirds of Babcock Brown's 25-member bank consortium agreed to drop a clause which gave lenders the power to review terms of a AUD2.8 billion corporate debt facility if Babcock's market value fell below AUD2.5 billion. The company's market capitalisation fell below that level earlier this month, sparking a major sell-off as investors feared creditors might invoke the review clause and force the firm to quickly repay the debt.
The paper also says that companies located in Dublin's Digital Hub expect to grow strongly during 2008, as noted by ENN on Monday.
The same paper reports that Shannon IT firm Avocent has confirmed plans to cut its workforce by over one-third, with the loss of 57 jobs. Seven other staff members face redundancy at the company's Dublin office. The company delivers IT infrastructure management products via hardware and software solutions, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Avocent Corporation in Huntsville, Alabama in the US. "The reductions will affect certain research and development, marketing and technical support functions, as well as the transfer of Asia operations from Shannon to the company's recently established regional hub in Singapore," Avocent said.
The Irish Examiner reports that 49 percent of the total Irish population aged over 15 are online, with around 1.6 million people accessing the internet last month alone, according to figures released by internet behaviour analyst firm comScore. Social networking is popular in Ireland, with around two-thirds of the online population accessing at least one social networking site in May. "The Irish market is coming up to an important tipping point where the number of people who are online in the country will soon outnumber those who are not, and with the current rate of growth in online visitation we would expect to see this happen later on this year," said ComScore analyst Jamie Gavin.
According to the Financial Times, Yahoo's board intensified an attack on activist shareholder Carl Icahn on Monday, questioning his investment record and describing his plans for the internet company as ill-defined. Icahn wants to replace the board with his own slate of directors at Yahoo's annual meeting on 1 August and would like to sell the company to Microsoft. Yahoo also provided a detailed time-line of its talks with Microsoft and accused it of being "unresponsive and inconsistent". The software giant had failed to respond to multiple requests for information about regulatory concerns. It had "only orally indicated [a] possible increase in price after several months of discussions," said Yahoo.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a French court has ordered eBay to pay Louis Vuitton and other luxury-goods brands EUR40 million in damages for allowing fake and unauthorised goods to be sold through the online retailer's web store. A Paris commercial court judge sided with LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and sister company Christian Dior, which had accused eBay of not taking the necessary steps to ensure that accessories sold on its sites around the world were not counterfeit. In addition, the judge ruled that eBay was guilty of unauthorised sales of Kenzo, Guerlain, Dior and Givenchy perfumes. Although the perfumes sold on eBay were legitimate, LVMH strictly limits their distribution to authorised dealers such as perfume chains and department stores.
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