News

(Associated Press) Eircom Group PLC announced Friday night it had received a euro2.36 billion (US$2.86 billion) takeover proposal led by the Australian investment group Babcock & Brown, which in February declared its interest in buying Ireland's largest phone company.

Eircom, a former state monopoly privatized in 2000, said its board received a "joint proposal" from Babcock & Brown and the company's own Employee Share Ownership Trust that "may or may not lead to an offer being made."

Since October, Sydney-based Babcock & Brown has accumulated a 28.8 percent share of Eircom stock, while the employee trust holds 21.6 percent. The proposal would value Eircom shares at euro2.20 (US$2.67) a share, a 2.8 percent premium to Eircom's closing price Thursday in Dublin. The Irish Stock Market was closed for the Good Friday holiday.

SHARES in China Real Estates Opportunities shot up 43pc, or by £4 (€5.79), yesterday to £13.25 (€19.18) on light trading volumes.

The company, which is backed by Treasury Holdings' Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett, has surged since it floated just before Christmas at less than £2.

CREO which floated on AIM as a property investment shell company has yet to buy a single property.

But there is increasing market speculation it is getting closer to being able to announce its first transactions in China.

Yesterday, however, chairman Ray Horney said: "I don't know the reason for it (the huge rise in his company's share price).

John Walshe

Education Editor

THE number of graduates has more than doubled to 50,000.

A new survey also shows that most are doing well in the job stakes with only 3pc of graduates out of work nine months after graduation.

Best paid are architects with around two-thirds of them starting on salaries of at least €25,000 a year, and some of them earning more than €33,000. More than half of the engineering graduates began on salaries of at least €25,000 a year. More than half the 'working' graduates have jobs on the east coast - mainly in the Dublin area, while only 3pc are working in the northwest and Donegal, with slightly more in the midlands.

BEWARE! Asia is coming. That was the core message from a presentation at last week's Irish Management Institute Conference in Wicklow, given by former Financial Times journalist turned professional 'thinker' and writer Charles Leadbetter.

One of the things that made his dire warnings about the rise of Asian economies so interesting was that it began with a different premise to previous predictions of doom and gloom.

Most warnings in recent years about the rise of China and India have focused on how these lower cost economies will continue to hoover up manufacturing jobs.

To some extent, it has almost become an accepted fact that the level of manufacturing conducted in the EU, and in places like Ireland in particular, will continue to fall, as companies move production east.

Japan's outspoken foreign minister referred to Taiwan as a "law-abiding country" on Thursday and drew a strong protest from Beijing, which considers the island a part of China.

Aso, who has riled China in recent months with a series of critical comments, told a parliamentary committee that Japan and Taiwan shared democracy and a market economy.

"Its democracy is considerably matured and liberal economics is deeply ingrained, so it is a law-abiding country," Aso said. "In various ways it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan."

The comment appeared to conflict with long-standing Japanese policy of one-China, meaning Tokyo, like the United States and many other nations, does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country.