Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Good morning and welcome to Breakfast Business with me, Tom McEnany, standing in for Joe Lynham. Coming up, we look into a PwC survey that shows that Irish family businesses are much more growth-orientated than their international peers.
A professor of organisational behaviour will explain why many business leaders are not prepared for the AI transformation and we'll have a usual perusal of the markets. But first, let's have a look at the business sections this morning. The Irish Times leads with news that Gardaí are investigating suspicious dealing in Apple Green shares.
The dealing, which emerged one year ago, relates to trades in 2020, just before the company announced it had received a takeover approach. Two men, neither of whom is connected to Apple Green, were arrested and later released last November, writer Joe Brennan tells us. The Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner business sections both lead with an economic outlook from AIB.
According to the bank, the Irish economy is expected to see growth continue into next year, but the pace of that growth will be arrested by global uncertainty and the reticence of nervous consumers.
Consumer jitters aside, it's worth bearing in mind that the IMF predicted that last month that the Irish economy will grow by more than 9% next year, giving us once again one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
The Financial Times leads with an interview with Jameson Greer, the US trade representative, who told the paper that the EU's duties affecting American exports were still too high, despite the deal struck between America and Europe last July. Yes, you heard that right.
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Chapter 2: What insights does a PwC survey provide about Irish family businesses?
America is indeed giving out to Europe about having high tariffs. The FT this morning also tells us that Goldman Sachs is vying to capture its biggest share of the deals market in almost a quarter of a century. The Wall Street Bank has advised on 34% buy value of the $3.8 trillion of global mergers announced this year, up from 28% in 2024.
Over in the currency, former Sunday Independent editor Alan English, who recently jumped ship to the business news site, starts a three-part series this morning on the boom, bubble and bust that reshaped Ireland's local media. And returning to the Irish Times, it carries a polemic from FT columnist Emma Jacobs calling on business people to read more.
Ms Jacobs refers to much-loved octogenarian author Joyce Carol Oates calling out Elon Musk for being uneducated and uncultured. And given that Mr Musk responded by calling the author a lazy liar, It seems she may indeed have a point.
In any case, the columnist quotes Victorian author Matthew Arnold referring to business people by saying, he who works for machinery works only for hatred, works only for confusion, which seems a little bit harsh.
Chapter 3: Why are many business leaders unprepared for AI transformation?
Now we're joined for our look at the markets by Russ Mould of investment platform AJ Bell. Good morning, Russ.
Morning to you, Tom.
Russ, do you read much?
book at home, book when I'm commuting on the train between London and Brighton and that's either to decompress and entertain myself or to keep abreast of my ignorance because I cover an awful lot of different topics and certainly things like AI
very much new stuff to a history graduate such as myself so I have to keep learning and it's not always just books blogs particularly related to finance I read a lot of history books because I studied history at university but also financial markets do operate in cycles and you do see things that keep on cropping up time and time again
I have to say my favourite, I love to read, but my favourite Matthew Arnold quote is, it's not the one mentioned in the Irish Times and Financial Times this morning, but rather that journalism is literature in a hurry. That's a gem. It is, isn't it? So, Russ, let's deal with the markets. Let's take the benefit of all the reading you've been doing for us over the weekend.
The US has struck a trade deal focused on food.
It has. It's with four countries, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Ecuador. Now, Tyrus will remain on a lot of goods at the reciprocal minimum level of 10%. But the presidency and the White House have struck a deal whereby there are exemptions for products that the U.S. does not produce, quote, or produces, quote, in insufficient quantities.
And these are basically foodstuffs, coffee, cocoa, bananas. Now, the White House has always said... Tariffs will not affect the American consumer. They won't push up prices and they won't affect inflation. Well, Treasury Secretary Percent over the weekend said one of the reasons they were doing it was to look at the cost of living and food prices, which seems like a bit of a contradiction.
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Chapter 4: What are the latest developments in the Irish economy according to AIB?
It's coughed up multiple profit warnings in the last couple of years. It's put out through a dividend cut. Its chief executive has gone. And the new boss, Cindy Rose, in October launched what she called a strategic review because things are getting so tough and having to adapt to an AI world is part of that. And also the ongoing dominance you can have in advertising of people like Google and
an amazon a meta that now suggestions that a european rival havas is sniffing around maybe for a stake maybe to take over the whole thing or for certain businesses and that private equity is sniffing which is exactly what i'd expect in an industry that is still very important where there is also merger and acquisition activity going on elsewhere between omnicom and ipg and where you've got a depressed that's very very a share price it's really really depressed so there may be some value to be had
And one of the things that's depressing that share price and the share price of all advertising giants is, of course, Google. And we've got news about Google. It seems that Warren Buffett is taking his share in Google, well, if not Google, its parent Alphabet.
Alphabet, yeah. And this is interesting because there's been lots of press about Buffett's investment company, Barchath. We're building up its cash pile to record highs of $382 billion. And a lot of people, including myself, have thought, well, maybe he's getting ready for some tougher times ahead here. He doesn't normally buy into tech companies. He did buy IBM for a bit unsuccessfully.
He's had a big stake in Apple, which has gone really well, which he's now actually selling down. And for the first time, he's buying shares in Alphabet, which, as you say, is Google's parent company. It's now his 10th biggest holding. And it does make me wonder, because Buffett, if you look at his type of business he likes to buy, he likes to buy things that are
really powerful in terms of the market positions, almost oligopolies, dare I say it, quasi monopolies. Now, there's no shortage of competition for Alphabet out there, but it does have six, seven, eight businesses. If you think about it, they've all got at least a billion users, whether it's Gmail, Maps, Drive, Android, YouTube. It's a really powerful business.
And maybe he's just deciding this is an AI winner because he's already so powerfully entrenched.
Very, very quickly, Ross, on another tech giant, Apple is focused on successional planning for its chief executive.
Yeah, Tim Cook's turning 65 this year, next year, and he's been in charge for 14 years. So I think they're looking maybe it's time for a carefully planned succession and the FT suggesting it may happen in the spring.
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