IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 28 May
28-05-2007
by Jonathan Farrelly
Imagine 'likely' to list on stock market | Cable & Wireless to close Dublin subsidiaries
The Irish Independent says that telecoms firm Imagine is "likely" to list on the stock market in 2008, with a view to raising EUR40 million to EUR50 million to fund foreign acquisitions. "We'd be likely to list early next year," said Brian O'Donohoe, Imagine's managing director. "The listing would be mainly for buying foreign acquisitions; it would be useful if we could offer sellers paper in a listed company." O'Donohoe said the company was in talks for potential acquisitions in France, Norway, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Spain and the UK.
The Irish Examiner reports that RegTel, the body that regulates premium rate phone services in Ireland, has unveiled new guidelines in an effort to stop cheats making money from hidden charges. Unsuspecting customers are being billed by some service providers with hidden charges for accessing internet pages through their mobile phones. Under the new guidelines, WAP premium rate service operators will have to tell users about costs, issue reminders on how much they have spent and tell them how they can cancel any subscriptions.
The Wall Street Journal says that Nokia has launched a service that enables Chinese users to download English lessons via their mobile phone, an effort to tap into China's growing fascination with technology and the English language. Nokia plans to charge users for the new, made-for-China service, called Mobiledu, which includes both audio and text-based lessons. Mobiledu "is a Chinese service at the moment, but there is no limitation" on where the service will be offered in the future, said Marko Vanska, director of Nokia's emerging business unit in China.
According to the Financial Times, LogicaCMG's chief executive, Martin Read, has declared he is stepping down as a direct consequence of last week's profit warning at the IT services firm. Logica said it would look both inside and outside the company for a replacement. Read, who has run the company for the past 14 years, will stay on until a successor is identified.
The paper also says that US newspaper groups experienced a 22 percent rise in online advertising revenues in the first quarter, but the sharp rise was not enough to offset the decline in revenues from traditional print advertising. According to estimates by the Newspaper Association of America, online advertising revenues reached USD750 million in the first quarter of 2007, just over 7 percent of the total advertising revenue of USD10.6 billion. In the same period last year, online revenues accounted for 5.5 percent of the total.
The Sunday Times reveals that the founders of Lastminute.com, Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox, have teamed up again to form a new business. Mydeco.com aims to help people decorate their homes. Hoberman said it would help customers "make the right choices and get taste validation".
The Sunday Independent reports that US telecommunications giant Verizon has reputedly offered to buy out Vodafone's 45 percent share of its US associate, Verizon Wireless, for USD38 billion. Vodafone, however, is holding out for USD50 billion.
The Sunday Business Post says that multinational telecoms conglomerate Cable & Wireless is shutting down a number of Dublin-based treasury and investment companies with combined assets of almost EUR300 million. The telecoms giant has closed four of its IFSC subsidiaries and is winding them up. A liquidator has been appointed to oversee the process.
The same paper reveals that founder of IT group Calyx is leading a management buyout of the firm, as reported by ENN last week.
The paper also states that technology firm The Tas Group raised almost USD16 million (EUR11.9 million) last year to fund its buyout of a division of Oracle. The Dublin Company bought Oracle's OnTarget division last June, but the value of the deal was not disclosed at the time.
The same paper says the Gardai believe overseas accounts may have been used in an alleged theft of EUR1 million by a senior Vodafone manager. Vodafone dismissed the unnamed member of the finance team in March after an internal investigation and has passed the results to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation. Fraud officers are examining the dismissed manager's financial records to see if there is a link to offshore accounts.
The paper also says how early investors in Dublin online firm BuildOnline are nursing losses after the firm merged with a US company. BuildOnline has merged with US firm Citadon to form a new company called CTSpace. The enlarged company has raised USD5.3 million (EUR3.9 million) in new funding from two American funders, Insight Venture Partners and GRP Partners. Industry sources said that BuildOnline's early investors, including Delta partners in Dublin, had lost money on the deal.
Finally, the Sunday Business Post reports that Irish gaming software firm Demonware made a profit of EUR125, 000 after interest and tax last year. At the end of last year, the young Dublin company had EUR112, 000 in cash on its balance sheet, a sharp increase from just EUR4,000 at the end of 2005. The firm was bought by Activision earlier this year following a number of months of negotiation. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 