Permanent TSB Bank has announced that the issue price for its planned new €400m share issue will be in the range of €3.90 to €4.50 per share.
Final pricing is expected to be announced on or around April 28 (next Tuesday) and the company’s shares are expected to list on the main Dublin and London stock markets on May 5.
The new equity capital is being raised to repurchase €400m in so-called Co Co (contingent convertible notes) or highly-priced loan notes issued by the Government as part of the bail out of the bank.
Permanent TSB has announced that subject to its share-raising plans it has agreed to repurchase these notes and pay a premium of just over €10.5m to the Government. In other words the Government will be paid €410.5m.
Subject to the pricing and demand for the bank’s new shares, the Government may also be requested to sell up to €100m in value of its existing 99 percent shareholding in order to bring its stake down to 75 percent.
This would enable private investors – institutions and individuals to hold 25 percent of the bank’s shares – the minimum threshold required for listing on the main Dublin and London stock markets.
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Tesco plans to halt its expansion in Ireland following sales declines - March was the first month in over a decade when the chain was not the most popular supermarket in the country.
Annual sales in Ireland fell from €2.69bn to €2.56bn during the last financial year - Tesco Ireland has experienced sales declines for 10 successive quarters.
Irish Times quotes Andrew Yaxley, chief of Tesco Ireland on the figures: "Our performance in the period is reflective of a highly competitive and challenging retail market."
This news comes one day after Tesco delivered one of the worst sets of results in British corporate history.
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Facebook has posted its slowest quarterly growth in two years as income fell by 20 percent to $509m (€475m) - this was due to a focus on R&D spending - gross revenue increased by 42 percent to $3.5bn.
Its number of monthly active users grew to 1.44 billion - 13 percent higher than the same period in 2014.
The amount of users accessing Facebook through its apps (as opposed to the website) increased by 24 percent to 1.25 billion - this is 87 percent of the company's total users.
The R&D spending increases mainly relate to products that have been acquired by Facebook - it hopes to expand its photo sharing app Instagram, and to develop Oculus Rift, its virtual reality headset.
Facebook is also transforming its Messenger platform into an entertainment and e-commerce hub - while WhatsApp will be maintained as a "utilitarian" messaging service.
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With Greece due to miss its self-imposed deadline of the Eurogroup meeting of European finance ministers tomorrow (April 24th) to agree a new deal with its creditors - PM Alexis Tsipras will meet German Chancellor, Angela Merkel in Brussels today.
Both leaders travel to Belgium for the EU's emergency migration summit. This is the pair's third meeting since Syriza came to power. The previous encounters have been described as constructive and the leaders have presented a united front to the media.
Greece is due to pay over €1bn to the IMF during May, markets will be looking for positive signs from Brussels today ahead of tomorrow's key-meeting.
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The Irish division of the global mobile phone company has reported a 14 percent drop in pre-tax profits, down by €17m to just over €100m, for the year to the end of March.
Revenues were 1.4 percent lower in the same period at just over €1bn
Vodafone is the largest mobile operator in Ireland with 2.1m customers of whom more than half are smartphone users. The number of smartphone customers rose 184,000 over the past year.
Vodafone Ireland paid a dividend of €80m to its parent last year, down from €150m the previous year.
