Paddy Power and Betfair have announced that they have agreed terms of a potential merger.
According to a statement just released, the proposed merger would create one of the world’s largest public online and betting companies with combined revenues of more than €1.5bn in their latest financial years.
The two betting-giants have announced that they plan to create Paddy Power Betfair Group - and that Paddy Power shareholders will own 52% of the company.
If the deal goes through Paddy Power shareholders will receive a a special dividend of €80m.
Newstalk understands that these talks only commenced in recent weeks, and have progressed rapidly - and that the plan was prompted by recent consolidation in the industry, such as the merger of Ladbrokes and Gala Coral.
Paddy Power’s new chairman, Gary McGann, would chair the new group.
Breon Corcoran, who has previously held the position of operating officer at Paddy Power and who is currently leading Betfair would become chief executive of the new group.
The deal is subject to due diligence, and approval from the companies' share holders and competition regulators.
Negotiations are ongoing, and more news is expected in the coming weeks.
Paddy Power also released strong interim half-year results today revenues rose by 25% while earnings before interest and tax were up 33% to €80m – more than half of which was generated in Australia where trading profits rose by 70%.
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Asian markets remained tense overnight - there are hopes that the recent period of economic volatility in China is coming to an end, but it remains to be seen if China's intervention has done enough to stabilise its economy.
After the Chinese central bank lowered its interest rates in an attempt to end the crisis, most Asia-Pacific stocks suffered only minor losses over night, while Japan's Nikkei hit a hight of plus 2.26%.
The Shanghai index fell by 1.8% in early trading, before rebounding after the lunchtime break, hitting a high close to plus 4%.
Key European share indexes rallied yesterday, the FTSE 100 ended Tuesday up 182 points (3.09%) at 6081.
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Four investment firms from the US have bid for Nama's biggest loan book, the portfolio which is known as Project Arrow.
Cerberus Capital Management, Apollo Global Management, and a Goldman Sachs and CarVal Investors consortium have all submitted bids according to Bloomberg.
The portfolio has a par value of some €7.2bn, and is comprised of 1,500 loans tied to more than 350 individual investors.
It consists of mainly non-performing loans tied to thousands of properties, most of which are in Ireland.
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Edun Apparel, the ethical clothing firm founded by Bono and his wife Ali recorded losses of $5.3m (about €4.5m) in the year to last December, according to latest filed accounts.
While the company’s losses have been falling in recent years, accumulated losses now amount to $66m
The accounts show that the Edun’s owners, Bono and Ali Hewson, and the global luxury firm, LVMH, which owns 49%, provided more than $13m in additional loan finance to the company last year. A note to the accounts points out that the owners will not seek repayment of up to $85m in shareholder loans for the foreseeable future.
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Pre-tax losses at Aircoach fell last year as the company experienced a jump in revenues.
Fresh figures show that Last Passive, the firm which controls Aircoach reduced its losses by 76 percent from €3.2m to €773,000 in the 12 months to the end of March 2014.
There was an 11% increase in revenues, up from €16.28m to €18.1m.
The directors' report commented that "the upturn in the economic environment and our ongoing investment in our services has been a positive influence during 2015."
