The Irish Independent reports that the battle over who gets what from the sugar industry's €146m restructuring compensation fund moved up another gear as the IFA lashed out at Greencore chief executive David Dilger yesterday.

The farmers' lobby group rejected Greencore's assessment on the extent of income losses for beet growers from the new sugar regime.

A report compiled for the IFA by Deloitte consultants claimed that beet growers would lose out to the tune of €106m even after taking account of their guaranteed €167m farmer compensation package. David Dilger has refuted those figures and said farmers would not be worse off at all.

A statement issued yesterday by the IFA said Deloitte's assessment of the losses to growers was based on "a very clear methodology".

IFA president Padraig Walshe said David Dilger "is now attempting to present spurious arguments in the media in an effort to undermine the IFA case".

Regulation

"Mr Dilger's suggestion that any allocation of more of the restructuring fund to growers does not comply with EU rules is without foundation.

"The council regulation to be finally adopted by the ministers in Brussels next Monday clearly states that member states shall be entitled to increase the percentage going to growers".

He said he wants to "flush out David Dilger". "I can understand why Mr Dilger is adopting such a defensive stance because his premature decision to close down Carlow early last year means that Greencore is not eligible for any EU restructuring aid for the losses involved," he said.

The EU directive on the fund guarantees the farmers 10pc of the €146m, with the rest going to Greencore as compensation for the cost of exiting the industry.

However, any figure above 10pc can be allocated to producers at the discretion of the Minister for Agriculture, if an economically sound balance in the elements of the restructuring plan is ensured.

With 260 BoI bank branches nationwide and currently 32 head office locations, this is one of the largest such contracts in the State.

It would also be the first big win in facilities management for McAlpine in Ireland and is an indication that it plans to continue to grow here.

The contract is thought to be worth between €18m and €20m a year but the exact nature of what will be outsourced is still being discussed.

In the UK, McAlpine provides similar facilities management services to many financial institutions, including Abbey National, Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBoS) and National Australia Bank.

The decision is intended to cut costs for Bank of Ireland and is likely to be followed by similar moves in other financial institutions that have yet to outsource this function.

A spokesperson for the Bank confirmed it was carrying out due diligence on McAlpine with a view to determining "the scope" of its contract.

She declined to estimate how many staff will be effected by the deal, the size of the contract, or the amount the bank hopes to save by outsourcing.

"We expect the majority of people in the area will transfer to our new partner. We will also retain a small facility in our head office," she said.

Staff who choose not to transfer to McAlpine are likely to be offered voluntary redundancy packages by the bank.

It is thought that McAlpine won the contract ahead of Dalkia, (a division of Balfour Beatty), Compass and Irish Estates Group.

Compass, which has a catering contract with the bank, was seen as an early front-runner in the bidding.

Bank of Ireland, as reported last year, is actively seeking to centralise many of its head office sites into one large campus which will partially allow it to reduce its facilities management costs.

This would see it vacate its Baggot St, Dublin, headquarters.

The Irish Times reports that Irish workers are being displaced by foreign nationals in the manufacturing and catering sectors, but they are finding alternative work elsewhere in the economy, according to the latest data.

The Central Statistics Office said yesterday that the number of Irish nationals working in manufacturing fell by 19,000 in the 12 months to last November. However the number of foreign nationals working in the sector rose by 7,500, resulting in a net loss of 12,800 jobs.

A similar pattern was apparent in the hotel and restaurant sector. The number of Irish workers in the sector fell by 800 while employment in the sector overall rose by 2,900, with foreign nationals accounting for the increase.

However, a significant rise in employment at the end of the year suggests the Irish nationals exiting these sectors are finding jobs elsewhere and no "job displacement" has occurred in the economy as a whole.

Some 86,500 jobs were created in 12 months to November. This was 4.7 per cent up on a year previously, according to the Quarterly National Household Survey published yesterday.

However, annual jobs growth has slowed since mid-year, while the pace of quarter-on-quarter growth has also slowed.

Employment levels in the September to November period were 0.9 per cent higher than the preceding three months. This compares with respective growth of 1 and 1.2 per cent in the June to August and March to May periods.

The breakdown of workers by nationality, published for the first time by the CSO, shows the number of foreign workers rising from one in 15 in November 2004 to one in 12 a year later.

Some 43,300 - just over half - of new jobs in the year to November went to foreign workers, bringing their total number to 171,000. The number of foreign workers grew by 33.9 per cent over the period, while the number of workers from EU accession states increased by 119 per cent.

Analysts drew attention yesterday to the continuing strength of the labour market, but some pointed to weakness in manufacturing and agriculture.

"The rise in employment remains broadly based. Of the 11 main economic sectors outlined in the Central Statistics Office data, 10 recorded higher numbers at work in late 2005 than a year earlier, while nine were also higher than in the previous quarter," Irish Intercontinental Bank economist Austin Hughes said yesterday.

Dermot O'Leary of Goodbody stockbrokers said that recent declines in agricultural and manufacturing employment were a continuation of longer-term trends in these sectors.

"These two sectors combined shed 2.4 per cent of their workforce in 2005. This is not a recent phenomenon, however, as job losses have totalled over 40,000 since 2000.

"Further job losses are to be expected in these areas in the coming years."

The number of unemployed fell by 5,400 between September and November, bringing total unemployment to 91,300.

At just 4.2 per cent of the labour force, the Republic's unemployment rate remains the lowest of any member-state in the EU and is less than half the EU average rate of 9 per cent.

The Irish Times also reports that a building company which claims to employ 220 people and which accepts it owes some €2.5 million in unpaid taxes to the Revenue Commissioners has lost a High Court application to stop the Revenue implementing "draconian" measures against it which, the company claimed yesterday would lead to it going out of business before this weekend.

PSK Construction Ltd had sought an injunction requiring the Revenue to reverse measures implemented against the company on February 8th last, which included withdrawing the company's C2 tax certificate and issuing notices which have the effect of instructing some of the company's major debtors to pay any monies owed to the company directly to the Revenue.

The injunction application was strongly resisted by the Revenue but, during the hearing yesterday, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy asked the sides, in light of the "serious fallout" for the company and its workers if the injunction was refused, to see whether some arrangement might be reached between them.

The judge said the debt was clearly due to the Revenue and the court had to take a serious view of it but perhaps, she suggested, the parties could see if there could be an accommodation that would enable the Revenue not to enforce the attachment notices issued to some of the company's creditors and its bank.

However, after a short adjournment, counsel for the Revenue said he regretted to say it could offer no concession to PSK. The Revenue had reached that decision in circumstances where it was very concerned there should be no perceived injustice to other taxpayers who are tax compliant, he said.

Cousnel said the company had not come to court with clean hands, it had made "serious misstatements" in affidavits concerning the number of employees and had also stated it had been previously tax compliant except for one other occasion. In fact, there were nine occasions, counsel said.

Earlier the court heard the Revenue disputed PSK's claim that it employed 220 people and that the Revenue believed it had some 140 employees.

David Kennedy SC, for the company, said monies had been held back from the Revenue Commissioners by his client in order to pay wages.

The company had also made full and voluntary disclosure of its liabilities to the Revenue, counsel added.

Refusing the injunction sought, Ms Justice Laffoy said she was satisfied it had not established any fair issue to be tried in relation to the Revenue's entitlement to withdraw the company's C2 tax certificate (which allows a company to get monies from contractors without tax being deduced by the contractor).

It was clear under the relevant provision of the Tax Acts that the Revenue could cancel a C2 where there was default by a taxpayer and it was understandable that this should be so, she said.

She also did not see that there was a fair issue to be tried regarding the Revenue's power to issue the notices of attachment to debtors of the company.

She regretted that, the judge said.

Had there been a fair issue, the balance of convenience would have favoured granting the injunction because of the "inevitable fallout" from the situation.

The Irish Examiner reports that pension funds are over-exposed to equities and risk serious losses if the markets under perform, fund trustees were told yesterday.

Trustees were also told to be more proactive if they want the best returns for their funds, by Tom Geraghty, head of Mercer Investment Consulting.

Speaking at the group’s investment conference, Mr Geraghty said Irish fund managers do not measure up to the best international performances.

While pension assets grew 22% last year, declining bond yields put upward pressure on the value of pension liabilities, he said.

Long-dated bond yields continued to decline last year and liabilities rose 13% as a consequence of that which meant the 22% asset growth was undermined in most cases, he said.

Brian Griffin, senior consultant and partner at Mercer, challenged the high equity allocation of funds.

“At approximately 80%, current equity allocations would beg a neutral observer to ask the question whether or not balanced funds are actually balanced?”

In Britain the equity exposure of funds is 55%-60% and it is 50% in the US.

Pension funds “are potentially exposing themselves to the same levels of risk that saw funding levels drop dramatically in the recent past”, he said.

Irish funds have a 22%-plus holding in Irish shares representing a concentrated exposure to the relatively small Irish market, which carries obvious risks.

Irish banks account for 40% of the market and the risks are obvious if anything should happen to the banking sector, he said.

Funds in the past had a 5% exposure to Elan when it dived and lessons have not been learned in the meantime, with Irish funds still tending to have a 40% exposure to the Irish market, he said.

Instead of opting for the predominantly large cap equity bet, trustees should look at global small cap and emerging market equities.

Investment in overseas properties, hedge funds and private equity were other options, he said.

Michael Dempsey, senior consultant at Mercer, said trustees are paying active fund managers substantial fees and they need to be satisfied they are getting value for money.

The Financial Times reports that Dell struggled to dispel Wall Street concerns about its performance on Thursday despite reporting quarterly figures that showed underlying sales growth and earnings broadly in line with forecasts.

In a watershed moment for one of the most successful technology companies of the past two decades, Dell forecast that the current quarter would be the first time since the technology collapse at the turn of the decade in which its revenues would not grow by 10 per cent or more.

Meanwhile, Kevin Rollins, chief executive, said Dell had instigated special measures to reverse a deterioration in its customer service levels.

"As a management team, we deem this unacceptable," he said. Steps included an increase in the number of customer support staff, simpler navigation on the company's website and more production plants, he added.

Dell's financial performance in its previous two quarters had fallen short of expectations as it struggled with weaknesses in its widely-admired business model. On Thursday, Mr Rollins said the company had fixed some of the management issues it had faced, though it still had further to go.

Dell executives faced a barrage of questions from analysts over whether the company's slowing growth rate and declining profit margins indicated that it was facing a long-term shift in its business model. By selling direct to customers over the internet and building computers to order, Dell has been able to sustain profit margins consistently higher than other PC makers.

Responding to suggestions that Dell no longer appeared to be growing faster than rivals such as Hewlett-Packard, Mr Rollins said: "It doesn't seem like we're in the pack at all. We intend to grow, we intend to grow and take share, as we have historically." Sales are likely to expand by between 6-9 per cent in the latest quarter, the company indicated.

Mr Rollins added that the company was examining whether changing conditions in the PC and server markets pointed to longer term changes in the company's financial model, and that it would give more details at an analysts' meeting in April.

One-off factors helped to lift the reported revenues and earnings above its own and Wall Street estimates in the final quarter of last fiscal year, Dell said. With a higher proportion of earnings than expected coming from lower-tax countries outside the US, the tax charge in the latest quarter was 1 cent a share lower than forecast, Dell said. It also attributed 2-3 percentage points of its growth rate to an unexpected increase in sales due to the fact that the latest fiscal quarter was one week longer than the same period a year before.

Revenues rose 13 per cent during the quarter, to $15.2bn, while net income climbed 52 per cent to $1.012bn, or 43 cents a share. Wall Street had expected earnings of 41 cents a share on revenues of $14.83bn.

The FT also reports that Airbus has completed the testing "to destruction" of the wings of its A380 superjumbo in static trials in Toulouse, and said on Thursday it was confident it remained on track to make the first delivery of an A380 for commercial service to Singapore Airlines by the end of December.

The wings in the static test had ruptured within 3 per cent of the target of the load tests and had bent by 7.4m (24.3ft) in the so-called "ultimate load test" before rupturing at a point between the inboard and outboard engines.

Initial news of the rupture in the wings caused shares in EADS, the Airbus parent company, to fall sharply in after-hours trading in Frankfurt with a drop of €3.23, or 10 per cent, to €28.

Airbus said, however, that the "satisfactory results" achieved so far should enable it "fully to demonstrate compliance with the certification requirements" of the aviation safety regulators in order to achieve the crucial "type certification" for the A380 later this year.

Alain Garcia, Airbus executive vice president engineering, told Air Transport Intelligence, the aviation news agency, yesterday that the wing rupture had occurred at between 1.45 and 1.5 times the limit load, which was itself the maximum load likely to be experienced by the aircraft during normal service.

He said that "essentially no modifications" would be required to production aircraft as a result of the tests.

The 555-seat superjumbo is the largest passenger jet ever built.

The first delivery to Singapore Airlines has already been delayed by around six months to the end of 2006 due to manufacturing issues at the aircraft maker as well as the greater-than-expected amount of customisation demanded by airlines, which complicated work on the electrical wiring harnesses.

The A380, which made its maiden flight in April last year, is currently undergoing a test programme of more than 2,500 flight hours, which will eventually use five different test aircraft.

Trials including aero-dynamics, low speed and flight vibration tests have been carried out, with cold weather trials taking place in Canada, where the aircraft must show that it can function fully under extreme weather conditions of up to minus 40 degrees centigrade.

The high altitude test campaign took place in Colombia last month, and hot weather trials will be staged in the summer.

Emergency evacuation tests to disembark hundreds of passengers in 90 seconds will take place in the spring.

To date Airbus has secured 159 orders for the A380 from 16 customers.

The New York Times reports that China is pursuing a novel way to catapult its automaking into a global force: buy one of the world's most sophisticated engine plants, take it apart, piece by piece, transport it halfway around the globe and put it back together again at home.

In the latest sign of this country's manufacturing ambitions, a major Chinese company, hand-in-hand with the Communist Party, is bidding to buy from DaimlerChrysler and BMW a car engine plant in Brazil.

Because the plant is so sophisticated, it is far more feasible for the Chinese carmaker, the Lifan Group, to go through such an effort to move it 8,300 miles, rather than to develop its own technology in this industrial hub in western China, the company's president said Thursday.

If the purchase succeeds — and it is early in the process — China could leapfrog competitors like South Korea to catch up with Japan, Germany and the United States in selling some of the most fuel-efficient yet comfortable cars on the market, like the Honda Civic or the Toyota Corolla.

The failure of China to develop its own version of sophisticated, reliable engines has been the biggest technical obstacle facing Chinese automakers as they modernize and prepare to export to the United States and Europe, Western auto executives and analysts said.

Buying that technology from overseas would not only remove this obstacle but would also plant China's auto industry solidly in a position to produce roomy cars that can also get more than 30 miles to the gallon.

The engine plant is one of the most famous and unusual in the auto industry. Built in southern Brazil in the late 1990's at a cost of $500 million by a 50-50 joint venture of Chrysler and BMW, the Campo Largo factory combines the latest American and German technology to produce the 1.6-liter, 16-valve Tritec engine.

Lifan says it is the sole bidder for the factory and wants to bring it here to start producing engines in 2008. Though China's Communist Party is actively behind the effort, the bold moves are being driven by one of China's remarkable entrepreneurs: Yin Mingshan has become one of China's most successful and most politically connected corporate executives, with a hardscrabble upbringing that included spending 22 years of his earlier life in Communist labor camps and prison as punishment for his political dissent.

Now the enormously wealthy and prominent president and principal owner of Lifan, Mr. Yin has his sights on exporting to Europe in 2008 and the American market in 2009.

Trevor Hale, a DaimlerChrysler spokesman, and Marc Hassinger, a Bayerische Motoren Werke spokesman, each said separately that their companies were assessing their options for when their joint venture legal agreement expires at the end of next year, but that it was premature to provide details.

The Tritec engine is one of the most technologically sophisticated and fuel-efficient car engines in the world, said Yale Zhang, an analyst in the Shanghai office of CSM Worldwide, a big auto consulting company based in the Detroit suburbs. Mr. Yin said he wanted to rebuild the factory on vacant land next door to his car assembly plant here. His goal is to understand the technology thoroughly so that he can supply engines not only for Lifan but also for other Chinese automakers.

In an interview on Thursday in a glass-walled conference room overlooking his recently completed car assembly plant, Mr. Yin, 67, said that while Lifan would pay for the factory, the Chinese negotiating team is being led not by a Lifan official but by a senior Chinese Communist party official, Huang Zhendong.

Mr. Huang, 65, is a member of the party's powerful Central Committee and led the party's Chongqing branch until December, when he became a senior member of the influential legal committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Mr. Yin's deputy, Yang Jong, Lifan's chief executive, has accompanied Mr. Huang on a visit to Brazil. "Everyone knows you need government support — the government may provide land," Mr. Yin said.

Any attempt to buy a comparable factory in the United States might be blocked. But Mr. Yin said that Brazil did not have comparable restrictions on the export of high technology.

Lifan, already one of the world's largest motorcycle manufacturers with sales in 112 countries, is about to start exporting its remarkably well-built, $9,700 midsize sedans to developing countries in Asia, the Mideast and the Caribbean. But several more years of work is needed before the company is ready to compete in industrialized countries, Mr. Yin said.

"Chairman Mao taught us: if you can win then fight the war, if you cannot win, then run away," he said. "I want to train my army in these smaller markets, and when we are ready, we will move on to bigger markets."

Accustomed to producing lightweight, fuel-sipping cars for cost-conscious Chinese families, Chinese automakers want to use that expertise as a competitive advantage around the world while oil prices stay high. Geely, a separate Chinese carmaker that surprised American and European manufacturers by announcing plans at Detroit's auto show last month to enter the American market in 2007, was emphasizing gas mileage even before oil prices surged in the last two years.

When crude oil prices were much lower than they are today, Geely switched from an inexpensive electronic engine control and fuel injections system made by Denso of Japan to a more expensive but more fuel-efficient model made by Bosch of Germany, said Lawrence Ang, an executive director of Geely.

Multinational automakers have struggled in China to keep up with the public's growing appetite for fuel-efficient models. Chinese carmakers like Chery and Geely captured a quarter of the Chinese market last year, up from less than 10 percent just two years earlier, said Michael Dunne, the president of Automotive Resources Asia, a consulting firm.

"Why the spurt? Small cars powered by gas-sipping engines that start at $4,000," Mr. Dunne said.

Raymond Bierzynski, the president of the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center of General Motors in Shanghai, said that gasoline costs were more important to consumers in China than elsewhere because these costs represent a higher share of the low household incomes in China. G.M. sells its Buick Excelle compact sedan with special, low-rolling-resistance tires in China, which it does not do in any other market and which increases gas mileage by up to 2 percent, he said.

Chrysler and BMW began construction of the Campo Largo factory in April 1998, a month before Daimler-Benz began a takeover of Chrysler that it completed in November of that year. Heralded in the automotive press at the time as arguably the most advanced engine factory ever built, the factory had already become a corporate orphan by the time production began in September, 1999.

The Brazilian auto market had entered a slump by then and Daimler already had ample engine manufacturing capacity of its own and was uncomfortable collaborating with its longtime German rival, BMW.

BMW installs its half of the engines from the factory in its award-winning Mini Coopers. But it has already announced that future engines for these cars will come from a factory in France that is owned and operated by PSA Peugeot Citroën.

Chrysler used to put the Brazilian-made engines in its Neon compact cars and the PT Cruiser. But it is now selling its half of the engines to Lifan and to Chery Automotive and a Chinese joint venture by Mazda.

Mr. Yin and spokesmen from DaimlerChrysler and BMW declined to comment on the price under negotiation for the factory.

Lifan made its debut into the car market just last month with the introduction of the Lifan 520 sedan, assembled in the company's sprawling new assembly plant here, where the conveyor belt is bright red and the giant clamps holding unfinished cars are bright yellow — the colors of China's flag. Lifan models itself on Honda, another motorcycle manufacturer that entered the car market, and shares Honda's emphasis on efficient, energy-saving designs.

Lifan has also copied Honda's focus on quality. Huge characters of Mr. Yin's sayings adorn a Lifan motorcycle engine factory inside and out; an illuminated board over the assembly line reads: "Whoever wrecks Lifan's brand, Lifan will wreck that person's rice bowl."

A test drive here of the Lifan 520 sedan showed it to have an impressively sturdy body with no rattles or wiggles even when traveling over very rough pavement — although this is no guarantee of long-term reliability. There is ample headroom in the front seats and even the rear seats for a 6-foot-4 occupant.

The $9,700 price tag includes leather seats, dual air bags, a huge trunk and a DVD system with a video screen facing the front passenger — a combination that could cost twice as much in a comparably equipped midsize sedan in the United States.

Wages of less than $100 a month have helped control the cost. The assembly plant is better organized than many Chinese factories, although it still maintains large inventories of parts and materials awaiting assembly, incurring interest charges to finance these supplies.

Mr. Yin has no doubts that China can also compete with the United States.

"Americans work 5 days a week, we in China work 7 days," he said. "Americans work 8 hours a day, and we work 16 hours."

The NYT also reports that Amazon.com is preparing to take on Apple Computer in digital music by introducing its own portable music player that would be linked to an online music service, according to several music industry executives involved with negotiations with Amazon.

Unlike Apple, which sells songs for 99 cents each, Amazon will offer a service that charges a monthly or annual fee to customers, who will have the right to fill up their music players with as many songs as they like, the executives said. When they stop paying the fee, the music on the player will be disabled.

Amazon has not told the music industry what the fee would be, but similar subscription services range from $5 to $15 a month.

Apple, which sold 14 million iPods last year, has expanded its lead in digital music. Apple increased its market share last year in the United States to 67 percent of digital music players from under 49 percent in 2004, according to the sales and marketing research firm NPD Group.

Music industry executives are enthusiastic about Amazon's entry because it might be a counterweight to Apple, which many see as having too much power in digital music.

"We are excited to participate in Amazon's launch," said Greg Scholl, the chief executive of the Orchard, the largest digital distributor of independent music. The Orchard, he said, has not reached a final agreement to provide music to Amazon's service. "Given the quality of Amazon and its team, I'm sure it will be an innovative and successful music product," he said.

Mr. Scholl declined to discuss any details of his negotiations with Amazon.

In a conference call with investors last month, Thomas J. Szkutak, Amazon's chief financial officer, highlighted digital media as a major area of growth. "As we move forward with digital, we think Amazon is especially well-positioned to capture a bigger part of that business," Mr. Szkutak said.

Patty Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman, declined to elaborate on the company's plans.

Amazon's intention to tie a subscription service to its own music player was reported yesterday by The Wall Street Journal.

Music subscription services have been offered by Napster, AOL, Real Networks and Yahoo for several years, and have attracted about two million customers, industry executives said.

One reason that the subscription services have not fared well is that the experience of using them with portable players is more difficult than using an iPod. The Microsoft software that all these services use has been awkward, and the players — made by several manufacturers like Samsung, iRiver and Creative Labs — have not been as appealing to consumers as those made by Apple.

Amazon hopes to remedy these problems by designing its own player in conjunction with a consumer electronics maker, and ensuring that the software works easily with it. The player would be discounted for customers who agreed to buy the music service for a specified period, the music executives said.

Amazon plans to load the player with songs of a customer's choosing before shipping it, the music executives said. And because Amazon maintains records of the CD purchases of its customers, it can also use that information to recommend music to be downloaded onto the players.

The company, in fact, is looking to leverage its role as a major vendor of CD's as it moves into digital music. It has discussed with music labels the possibility of offering discounts to subscribers of its music service on CD purchases.

It has also talked about giving CD purchasers digital versions of the songs, saving them the time and trouble of creating their own digital files to move onto the portable players. Record company executives say that the financial arrangements that underlie these potential discounts have not been finalized. They add that Amazon has said it hopes to introduce the service by summer.

Ross Rubin, the director of industry relations with NPD, said that Amazon's plan to create its own brand of player faced challenges. A similar effort to create a Napster-branded player made by Samsung faltered, he said.

"The branded music player approach hasn't worked because of Apple's considerable iPod marketing and brand power," he said. But he did say that Amazon's customer relationships may give it an edge.

"It's a unique advantage for them," he said.