Friday newspaper round-up: Ireland, Portugal, oil industry

1st Apr 2011 06:22

Ireland's once booming banking sector is to be shrunk by €73.6bn (£65bn) into two "pillar" banks by the country's new government as it seeks to find a way out of the three-year financial crisis that has crippled the economy. Under a €24bn restructuring plan announced after the markets had closed, the government is taking majority control of all existing players on the Irish high street, the Guardian reports.Portugal came under ever more pressure to take a bail-out as it revealed that the hole in its finances is bigger than expected. New figures showed the country's budget deficit stood at the equivalent of 8.6pc of its gross domestic product (GDP) for 2010, missing the government's 7.3% target by more than a percentage point. Lisbon blamed the size of the deficit on a change in the calculation methods at Eurostat, the European statistical agency, which meant the figure had to reflect nationalised bank losses and the state of public transport companies, according to the Telegraph.George Osborne will meet representatives of the oil and gas industry to find ways to mitigate the damage from a windfall tax he imposed on North Sea operators in last week's Budget. Oil industry executives won this concession after meeting Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, and Justine Greening, the Treasury minister, to express anger over the tax yesterday, the Times reports.A project to provide mobile phone access across the London Tube network in time for the Olympic Games has collapsed because of the technical complexity of installing the system. The four mobile networks: O2, Vodafone, Everything Everywhere and 3, have spent several million pounds on preliminary work but have decided there is not enough time to complete the project in time, the Times reports.Residents who helped in the work along the US's southern coast are now suffering from health problems, while boat owners whose vessels were used in the clean-up went unpaid and their craft damaged, according to a suit filed in New Orleans. The legal claim targets BP and the well's co-owners Andarko Petroleum and Mitsui. Nalco Holding, which made the dispersants used, is also named as a defendant, the Telegraph reports.Prudential has paid its chief executive, Tidjane Thiam, £4.7m for 2010 even after his botched bid for AIA cost the insurer £377m. Mr Thiam will get a bonus of £1.57m - only £50,000 less than the maximum - on top of his £900,000 salary. He will also receive £2.1m in long-term share payments based on the Pru's shareholder returns for the past three years, the Independent says.Terra Firma, the private equity firm run by Guy Hands, is putting the Odeon & UCI cinema chain up for sale in a deal likely to be valued at between £700m and £1bn ($1.1bn-$1.6bn). Mr Hands is expected to appoint Bank of America Merrill Lynch to run the auction. The bank has also been asked to examine the option of refinancing the company with new debt of about £600m. Terra Firma declined to comment, says the Financial Times.RG