Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock

President Trump heralded a “new chapter in American greatness” in his address to Congress last night. A pretty picture, says senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Caroline Freund, but not the likely outcome.The former World Bank economist predicted that the next four years are going to look very like Reagan’s presidency while the US economy experiences a short boom followed by a crash.Columnist Chris Johns said Trump’s speech was light on detail about the administration’s much mooted plans to reform tax and the president appeared to demonstrate a lack of understanding about what exactly VAT is. Both Freund and Johns agreed that the US corporate tax system is bad for domestic business and President Trump is right to have it in his cross-hairs, though that would spell bad news for Ireland.Also on the podcast, Laura Slattery and Mark Paul of the business team were in studio to discuss the rumours of exploratory talks on a possible take-over of The Examiner by Independent News Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It has been all change in the Irish agri-food sector these past weeks. Poor results at bakery giant Aryzta led to the departure of CEO Owen Killian and his team, while this week saw Kerry and Glanbia posting expectation-beating profits and revealing news about their future plans. To analyse the news we talk to Joe Gill of Goodbody Stockbrokers and our own Joe Brennan who has been covering the stories. In part two we talk to Pamela Newenham, formerly of this parish but now departing for San Francisco to represent Irish social-tech start-up GirlCrew, which she co-founded. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

KBC Bank had a decision to make: stay in Ireland and grow its mainly mortgage-based business here, or fold up the tent and go back to Belgium. Following an internal review, it was announced last week that KBC would remain. CEO of KBC Ireland Wim Verbraeken is here to tell us why they're staying, what it means for Irish banking and how KBC will face the challenges ahead.In the second half of the show, Brid O'Connell, CEO of Guaranteed Irish explains that organisation's strategy for becoming relevant to Irish consumers again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Trump’s plan to overhaul the US tax system and how that might affect Ireland, is the focus of this week's Inside Business podcast.On the panel, tax partner with Grant Thornton, Peter Vale, who said there is still a lot of uncertainty about what will actually happen, and while there has been no sign of US companies deciding to move out of Ireland yet, some investments are certainly being put on hold.Irish Times columnist Chris Johns spoke about the need for some radical thinking in the face of Trump’s proposed reforms and newly installed Irish Times Washington Correspondent Suzanne Lynch was on the line to give the view from the US. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the height of the property boom in 2005, Jurys Doyle sold Jurys Ballsbridge to property developer Sean Dunne. “I was sitting in Ulster Bank in Dame Street when we opened the bids,” recalls Pat McCann, then Jurys Doyle CEO and now head of Dalata, Ireland's biggest hotel group. What popped out of the envelopes that day changed everything for McCann, who tells Ciaran Hancock about his career in the hotel trade on this week's podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's podcast: Ian Hunter of Investec and our markets correspondent Joe Brennan analyse the problems facing Swiss-Irish baking behemoth Aryzta, and its CEO Owen Killian, as its share price tumbled yesterday following the latest in a series of profit warnings. Where has it all gone wrong? Michael Noonan and EU taxation commissioner Pierre Moscovici were singing from different hymn sheets at The Irish Times Corporate Tax summit earlier this week. Cliff Taylor was there and he tells us what went on. Plus: For every €1 invested in advertising, companies win an average return of over €5 - not too shabby. This is according to a new report co-authored by Alan Cox of advertising agency Core Media, who joins Ciarán and media reporter Laura Slattery to explain their findings, discuss why this bonanza is not being seized by more Irish businesses - and why loyalty programmes are a waste of time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain will not strike a deal with the EU on the basis of Theresa May’s Brexit speech yesterday, according IBEC CEO Danny McCoy on today's podcast. He says the British Prime Minister knows it’s going to be a no deal and she offered up a “fairly appalling vista for Irish business” in her speech.“I think she knows it’s a no deal,” he says.McCoy was joined by economist Jim Power, who said the Irish government badly needs to devote more serious attention to Brexit, and Cliff Taylor, who said their G7 status and strategic military importance will play in their favour.Later in the podcast Irish Times Industry Correspondent Martin Wall and economist Sean Barrett discuss the problems and potential solutions for insolvency-threatened Bus Eireann. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

T.K. Whitaker, who died this week aged 100, made a huge impact on the thing we discuss, one way or another, on this podcast every week - the health of Ireland's commercial and economic life. To look back on his life and career we talked to John Fitzgerald, formerly of the ERSI which Whitaker founded, Anne Chambers, his biographer, and columnist Fintan O'Toole. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Regulation is one way tackle so-called vulture funds, says Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty, but it is not clear whether there is a will at government level to introduce it.The Donegal TD told this week’s Inside Business podcast that he believes the government still wants to use these funds to “clean up the carcasses” of the commercial property sector.Deputy Doherty was speaking after last night’s RTÉ documentary, The Great Irish Sell Off, which reported that giant US investment funds paid miniscule amounts of tax despite making enormous profits on their Irish investments.Irish Times markets correspondent Joe Brennan has reported widely on these funds, and spoke to the podcast about the main players in the market, the assets and loans that they have acquired and the structures they have used to pay very little tax.One of those investment funds, Cerberus, hit the headlines over its controversial purchase of NAMA’s Project Eagle portfolio. Barry O’Halloran took us through the details of that and he also raised questions about whether the government may have accidentally done the wrong thing by closing the Section 110 loophole.Also on the podcast, Pearse Doherty spoke about the resignation of Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin were left with “no choice” he said, after talks between McGuinness and the DUP First Minister Arlene Foster came to naught. The next step is elections, said Doherty, with lengthy negotiations on the future of the power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland to follow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2016 the number of Irish jobs in IDA-supported companies exceeded 200,000, more even than during the Celtic Tiger period. The figures prove how critically important foreign direct investment has become to the Irish economy today, and how seriously we should take threats to our attractiveness as a location for foreign investors. The threats are there, from potential Brexit shocks to the Trump administration's policies on foreign investment, external pressure to change our tax regime and domestic issues like the housing shortage that undermine our competitiveness. In the next two years IDA chief executive Martin Shanahan wants to add another 80,000 jobs to the 200,000 already brought in by the state agency. He talks to Ciarán Hancock about the agency's achievements, the upsides and downsides of Brexit and Trump and how the IDA will navigate the choppy waters ahead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.