While Bank of Ireland (strongBKIR/strong) and Allied Irish Bank (strongAIB/strong) are digging heels at October/November lows, Anglo Irish Bank (strongANGL/strong) continues to drift.br /br /a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WWGUfU1tOjI/SUe9b2ox6dI/AAAAAAAAAqY/51S8HK-cS9M/s1600-h/ANGLDec16.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 182px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WWGUfU1tOjI/SUe9b2ox6dI/AAAAAAAAAqY/51S8HK-cS9M/s320/ANGLDec16.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280397374335871442" //abr /span class="fullpost"John McManus of the a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/1215/1229035720274.html?via=mr"Irish Times/a writes:br /br /blockquoteIt is clear from the share price of Anglo Irish Bank that no one - apart from its board, presumably - believes management when they say they the bad debts in its €73 billion loan book will amount to a manageable €879 million while the economy shrinks by up to 4 per cent next year/blockquotebr /He adds:br /br /blockquoteThe problem for Anglo is that, when you do this sort of worst- case exercise on it, there appears to be little chance that it can attract sufficient capital to allow it to absorb its losses. Hence the collapse in its shares relative ...

From the a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1209/breaking35.htm"Irish Times/a.br /br /blockquoteThe group is suffering alongside other big ticket retailers from the economic downturn. Total sales orders fell by 47 per cent in the three months to November 2nd.br /br /It added recently: “We expect market conditions to be challenging and uncertain for the remainder of 2008 and 2009 which includes the important January sale period.”br /br /Shares, which floated at 149p in 2005, closed at just 9p on Monday, giving it a market capitalisation of around £4.5 million. Despite the slump, Land of Leather said it would protect remaining shareholder value./blockquotebr /span class="fullpost"Based on the currently traded price of 6p it puts the market cap at £2.1m according to a href="http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=lanm=Ld="Yahoo/a. However, the Irish Times wnet on to say it has £6.9m in cash with no debt:br /br /blockquoteIn October Land of Leather revealed that its annual pre-tax profits had dived to £2.3 million, ...

Michael O'Leary has made a bargain basement offer for Aer Lingus. With oil prices down at 2007 lows the coming months should be 'better' for the industry - even if this only translates to 'less worse' than other industries during the recession.br /br /From the a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1201/breaking16.html?via=mr"Irish Times/abr /br /blockquoteRyanair has launched a second bid to purchase Aer Lingus in an offer that values the carrier at €748 million, or approximately half the value of its first bid.br /br /The €1.40 a share cash bid represents a premium of around 28 per cent over the average closing price of Aer Lingus shares for the 30 days to November 28th, 2008.br /br /Ryanair already owns almost 30 per cent of Aer Lingus shares and said in a statement it is proposing a “merger of the two airlines into one strong Irish airline group under common ownership”.br /br /At 1.12pm Aer Lingus ...

Link FestHedge Fund Link FestIn case you have been reading up on bank failures and bail outs all week and missed much of the news on the hedge fund industry here is a link fest out to many of the events which recently occurred in the industry:Citadel, TPG-Axon Stumble Toward Worst Year in Hedge-Fund SwoonBloomberg - USA19, the worst first nine months of a year since Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. started tracking the data in 1990. Investment gains are being ... Worth Interviews Hedge Fund Guru David EinhornMarketWatch - USAIn the case of Lehman Brothers, one of those short sellers is David Einhorn, the head of hedge fund Greenlight Capital. Last May Einhorn stated publicly ... ...