Sir Tony O’Reilly (above with son Gavin) may have been humiliated by debt, and so forced into surrendering the Independent in London to the new home of global wealth; but the Independent News & Media he built manages to extract €53.9m of profits in the country on €400m of sales. Some of that is from printing Irish editions of London titles, but the core newspaper business still trades at a 13% margin that widget manufacturers would never even hope to aspire to.
In this milieu the money men stalk. Dermot Desmond, always hopeful of buying cheap and selling dear, is picking up Independent News & Media shares, stake building by the day. Perhaps he too sees the bottom of the cycle. Or reckons another INM shareholder, Denis O’Brien – still wounded from the tribunal that said he helped bribe a minister to secure a mobile phone licence – will finally get round to launching a proper bid. There is no shortage of economic problems in Ireland, but if this is the worst of recessions, then it is not so terrifying looking up from the foundations
Ireland’s Love Of Print Can Survive The Worst Of Recessions (Dan Sabbagh, Guardian)