Ireland’s Chef of the Year

from 2019 Gold Medal Awards Brochure

by Ashville Media Group

Ireland’s Hotel Breakfast

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TheSunday Business Post

September 1, 2019 businesspost.ie EMMET OLIVER

ON BUSINESS p12 PERSONAL FINANCE p6 TECHNOLOGY p8

PropertyPlusFine Arts From hidden treasure to a wealth of visual pleasure page 6 TheSunday Business Post September 1, 2019 businesspost.ie The Sunday Business Post is offering a fantastic discounted rate for hotels of just 40 cent per copy

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New this week] BidX1’s auction preview P8 ] New homes on the market P2 PROPERTY EDITOR TINA-MARIE O’NEILL property@sbpost.ie The hospitality sector has seen a levelling out of room rates this summer, but a ripple of new hotel openings is expected to continue, especially in Dublin

Big-money hotel deals a sign of things to come Donal Buckley Twelve hotel deals gener-ated almost €206 million for their vendors during the first half of this year, according to the latest figures from CBRE. A further €500 million of hotel transactions could complete before the end of the year, with several large deals at various stages of negotiations, involving some sizeable Dublin properties. CBRE’s head of research Marie Hunt said demand continued to outstrip sup-ply, particularly for hotels in prime Dublin city centre locations, although there had been something of a plateauing in hotel performance of late. Niamh Walsh of Cushman & Wakefield said the first half of the year’s number of deals was ahead of last year and that the reduction in the holding period for capital gains tax exemptions might have encouraged the increased supply. She said the majority of sales were less than €20 million in value. Exceptions included the five-star Powerscourt Estate in Co Wicklow, which was acquired by the MHL Group for about €50 million. Another Wicklow five-star sale saw the Neville Hotel Group purchasing Druids Glen Hotel & Golf Resort for a reported €45 million in a deal brokered by Savills.These sales boosted deals in the east and midlands region, where Oakmount, the development company headed by Paddy McKillen jr and Matt Ryan, has re-cently purchased the 65-bedroom Glasson Country House Hotel and Golf Club outside Athlone. The Irish Times reported a price of about €9 million. Earlier in the year, FBD Group bought the Heritage Hotel & Spa in Laois for €8.3 million, and iNUa hospitality group bought the Tullamore Court in Co Offaly for some €12 million.While Irish operators bought most of the properties, overseas players are also active. Singaporean investor Dr Stanley Quek purchased the five-star Sheen Falls Lodge on the banks of Kenmare Bay in Kerry for around €17 million. Along with restaurateur Peng Loh, he also bought the 27-bedroom Dublin Citi Hotel and Trinity Bar on Dame Street in Dublin 2. Meanwhile, Colm Wu expanded his portfolio of small-sized hotel assets with the acquisition of the Abbey Hotel in Dublin 1. In July, Deutsche Finance Internation-al, the London based pan-European private equity real estate investor, teamed up with Dublin-based BCP to acquire Gerry Conlan’s Central Hotel on Dublin’s Exchequer Street for a price believed to be below the €40 million which had been sought. The hotel has 70 rooms laid out over four floors as well as retail and food and beverage units on the ground floor. Its new owners plan to add more rooms and are also considering alternative uses, possibly in the tourism and leisure sector, for the Trinity Street car park which was part of the deal. to page 2 Glasson Hotel near Athlone was bought by Oakmount for circa €9 million The 202-room Aloft Dublin City hotel, which was recently completed Portmarnock Hotel and Golf Links is expected to fetch more than €50 million

The five-star Sheen Falls Lodge in Kerry, which was bought by Singaporean investor Stanley Quek for around €17 million The Marker Hotel at Grand Canal Dock is on the market for €125 million The Central Hotel on Exchequer Street sold for under the €40 million asking price The Marlin Hotel, near St Stephen’s Green, had its opening last week

Phone giant Huawei is based in Shenzhen, a city without a pas t – but the United States seems determined that it will have no future in the world’s tech infrastructure. Here, its chairman Guo Ping claims the allegations against the company are ‘based upon nothing’

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H uawei’s sprawling Shenzhen campus in south-east China is home to tens of thousands of the tech giant’s legions of workers. Dark-feathered swans, indigenous to the wetlands of southern Australia, paddle idly on its man-made lake, their presence no mere novelty, but a pointed warning to guard against complacency at all times. to page 2 8 MINS DRIVE TO DUBLIN AIRPORT SWIFT CONNECTIVITY TO M50, M1, M2 MOTORWAYS AND THE PORT TUNNEL 9.5 M CLEAR INTERNAL HEIGHT 37 M YARD DEPTH 37 M 29,820 PALLETS (ADDITIONAL CAPACITY ACHIEVABLE) 15 X DOCK LEVELLERS 5 X LEVEL ACCESS DOORS 8 X HGV SPACES 192 CAR PARKING SPACES HIGH QUALITY MODERN OFFICES AND STAFF FACILITIES

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September 1 2019 Magazine OFF MESSAGE Nadine O’Regan on ageing disgracefully THE FERTILITY QUESTION The final part of our major series BROUGHT TO BOOK Why everyone’s going back to college CORNERS Cutting

From hidden treasure to a wealth BidX1’s auction preview of visual pleasure CONNECTED SEPTEMBER 2019 businesspost.ie TO BOT OR NOT TO BOT? How chatbots could help your business WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION The tricks Big Tech uses to grab your attention DATA DILEMMAS What you need to know now about cyber-security

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BY AIDEN CORKERY

The government is strongly considering bringing in a budget based on the presumption of a no-deal Brexit.

While no final decision has been made, a senior source said it was now the “more likely” option and that it would include a package of supports designed to help businesses and support jobs that would be deployed if needed.

It comes as Tánaiste Simon Coveney separately said Ireland could not compromise on the backstop as it would mean Irish politics would be “dominated by the border issue indefinitely into the future”. While the government envisaged an orderly Brexit would allow it run a surplus of 0.4 per cent of GDP and leave it with €700 million to spend on new measures, a no deal budget would turn this into a deficit in the region of -0.5 per cent to -1.5 per cent and could leave the government needing to borrow up to €5 billion.

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe had warned in June that a no-deal Brexit would threaten 50,000 jobs. He also indicated that tax cuts would be off the agenda. The budget is due to be announced on October 8, just weeks ahead of the October 31 deadline.

A Department of Finance spokeswoman said no final decision would be made on which budget option would be chosen until later this month.

In an interview with The Sunday Business Post, Coveney said that while he believes Britain wants a deal, international negotiations do not operate on the basis of one side warning it will cause havoc for everyone if it doesn’t get what it wants.

The Tánaiste said he didn’t believe the public would panic in the case of a nodeal departure by Britain. He said a campaign to prepare the country for this potential outcome would be ramped up in the coming weeks and that Revenue would be actively contacting SMEs to ensure they have applied for an economic operators registration and identification (EORI) number.

He said businesses should examine their warehousing capacity and that British attempts to divide EU countries on Brexit had failed.

Speaking after a week-long series of European visits that included Paris, Prague and Krakow, as well as an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Helsinki, the Tánaiste said British negotiators still haven’t tabled any realistic alternatives to the backstop.

“We’ve heard generalised

INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM ON SUNDAY September 1-2 , 2019 businesspost.ie Price €3.40 comments around trusted trader scheme and technology and we have seen a number of different proposals coming from different groups in terms of alternative arrangements, but when they’ve been

see page 2

Vol. 32. No. 35 ‘The real act IN THE MAGAZINE Lucinda Creighton on Brexit of treason is to stand by and do nothing’ Huawei chief comes out against allegations of deep-state ties and espionage Post Plus, pages 1-3 Just what is going on inside Ireland’s unregulated cosmetic procedure industry? The Magazine, pages 12-14 CUTTING CORNERS Government readies no-deal budget plan Could drones deliver your dinner? as deadline looms ●Move would take tax cuts off the table and require emergency supports

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The price of some of Denis O’Brien’s Digicel’s riskiest bonds slumped to a record low last week as fresh fears grew about the mobile phone company’s debt levels. The price of bonds issued by Digicel at the beginning of this year to investors as part of a plan to ease its borrowing concerns fell below 10 cents on the dollar last week. The bonds were issued at 45 cents in January as part of a complex debt swap aimed at giving the company breathing space to implement a turnaround plan. A number of bonds, including those due to be repaid in 2021 and 2023, also dropped. The latest price fall came amid another set of Digicel Integrates with 50+ Business Software financial results that showed its revenue and earnings conEscaping the CRM maze of moral hazard

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tinue to slip, albeit mostly due to currency fluctuations. The company, which operates mobile phone and broadband services in 30 countries across the Caribbean and South Pacific, has been weighed down with debts of $7 billion, incurred as it rolled out its network.

The company sought to assure its bondholders on a conference call last week that it is looking to grow its revenues and that it is comfortable with its liquidity and leverage. However, Digicel executives declined to respond to questions on the call about plans to address its debt levels, insisting that the briefing was about the quarterly results. O’Brien was on the call with investors.

According to the most recent quarterly results for

Kick out gambling ads from matches, say GAA players BY AARON ROGAN Digicel, which cover the three months to the end of June, A ban on gambling adver- revenues fell 1 per cent to $539 tisements being broadcast million while earnings before during GAA matches has interest and depreciation slid been called for by the 2 per cent to $243 million. The leading union for GAA company had $214 million in players. cash at the end of the quarter.

Ahead of today’s On the call with bondAll-Ireland football final holders, Digicel chiefs said between Dublin and Ker- its leverage had peaked ry at Croke Park, Paul Fly- during the quarter at more nn, chief executive of the than seven times earnings Gaelic Players Association, and was expected to reduce told The Sunday Business as the business returned to Post that gambling adverts growth this year. during half time should be Digicel earlier this year re“removed to protect the structured part of its borrowmost vulnerable”. ings by securing approval to

The level of gambling push out the timeline to repay promotion during live some debt by two years by issports is under increasing suing new bonds. Those bonds scrutiny, due to concerns have fallen heavily as the over the level of addiction turnaround strategy, which and youth betting, driven involves getting customers mainly online. see page 2