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Sign on the dotted line. .. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal became the first person to buy the ultimate status symbol - - his own Airbus A380 superjumbo. The ordinary passenger version of the A380 sells for more than $300 million and seats 550 passengers. Excluding lounges and economy-only seating, the double-decker can handle 850 passengers. The signing ceremony took place at the Dubai Air Show, November 2007.
Permanent TSB
Permanent TSB said today that 120 jobs are to be cut under a voluntary severance scheme as the bank cuts its number of branches from 103 to 92.
The affected staff will receive seven and a quarter weeks pay for each year of service to the bank, capped and two and three-quarter years. The bank said the specific branches affected would be told in the coming week, and customers would be transferred 'seamlessly'.
Last year, Permanent TSB offered staff paid career breaks in an effort to cut costs.
Alwaleed says ‘mature’ banks made wrong assumptions on Dubai
Bloomberg reports that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire Saudi investor, said banks that loaned money to Dubai World can’t claim to be victims of the emirate’s debt crisis because they should have understood the risks.
“These banks are very mature banks, and they have to differentiate between a corporate loan and a sovereign loan,”Alwaleed, 54, said yesterday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.“When things go sour, you can’t have some banks in the West going to Dubai and saying ‘oops’ and crying wolf and saying, ‘You should have guaranteed those loans.’”
Dubai World, the state-controlled investment firm whose assets include a stake in Las Vegas casino company MGM Mirage, is seeking to reschedule payments on about $26 billion of debt. Standard & Poor’s said on Oct. 15 there was a “significant” likelihood that Dubai would help government-related entities such as Dubai World meet debt obligations. Dubai’s government told creditors of Dubai World on Nov. 30 that they should help in a restructuring of the holding company because the government hasn’t guaranteed the debt.
The prince, the largest single shareholder in Citigroup, would likely sing a different tune, if Citi was due to take a big hit.
In just 30 days the UK's reduced 15% VAT rate will revert back to 17.5%. Terry Walby from Computacenter told CNBC consumers are "taking an interest" to the reversion but "what we're seeing is businesses starting to consider the impact of VAT change of big capital spend items":
S&P warns on some Bank of Ireland debt
Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's today cut the ratings on some of Bank of Ireland's securities saying the move was prompted by the European Commission forcing AIB to suspend interest payments on similar paper.
AIB said on Tuesday that it was suspending coupon payments on some bonds and share dividends.
S&P said it had it lowered its ratings on Bank of Ireland's deferrable capital instruments to 'CCC' from 'B' for instruments without voting rights, and from 'B-' for instruments with voting rights.
Like AIB, S&P said Bank of Ireland was also under stress and receiving material state aid, and it has submitted a restructuring plan to the Commission.
"The EC has, in our view, developed a track record of requesting that stressed banks in receipt of state aid and subject to restructuring plans should not make coupon payments on their hybrid capital instruments unless under a binding legal obligation to do so," S&P said.
Complaints on pensions
The Irish Pensions Ombudsman Paul Kenny said today that during 2008, his office received 758 new complaints, an increase of 47% over the previous year. 639 files were closed -- an increase of some 9% over 2007.
He said 2008 began with 354 complaint files still open and ended with 473 cases still on hand, an increase of 34%.
Kenny said many of the complaints are difficult and complex and not amenable to a quick fix solution.
He said an increasing number of complaints related to the construction industry, with some employers failing to register their employees with the Construction Workers Pension Scheme or failing to make the right contributions.
Kenny gave details of a case dealt with last year, where a professional administrator misappropriated pension scheme benefits. He said this did not result in any personal gain, but was done to cover up an earlier mistake. After an investigation, the complainant was fully reimbursed and the matter was reported to the Pensions Board.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies in front of the Senate Agriculture Committee on how to regulate the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market:
US markets
US private sector employment is forecast to have fallen 169,000 from October to November 2009 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report. The estimated change of employment from September to October was revised by 8,000, from a decline of 203,000 to a decline of 195,000.
Discussing his secret to success, with John Pinkerton, Range Resources chairman & CEO:
Oil
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil for January 2010 delivery is trading at $76.65 down $1.72 from Tuesday's close. In London, Brent crude for January delivery is trading at $77.24 a barrel.
Currencies
The euro is trading at $1.5074 and at £0.9048.
For live currency updates, check the right-hand column of the Finfacts home page.The dollar traded at a record low $1.6038 per euro on July 15, 2008.
