Full coverage: Investment

Coillte’s decision to raise investor funds through the asset management firm Gresham House has re-lit a passionate debate on forestry. We interview the central people involved at the state-owned company and its two PPP private partners.

As trade routes between Ireland and the continent are redrawn to avoid Britain, France has never felt closer – and its modernising economy is attracting a growing volume of business to and from this island. Thomas Hubert reports from Paris.

From its offices in South Co Dublin, Blacksheep Fund Management manages hundreds of millions of dollars. An analysis of its filings in both Ireland and the US provides insights into its profitability, bonus structure and market strategy.

Behind a leafy façade in Georgian Dublin, a small team has been instrumental in directing global institutional investors towards Irish property development. Based on hundreds of documents, site visits and insider information, this investigation tells Ardstone’s story.

When the housing crisis emerged, Ardstone Capital had an address book full of international investors and no baggage from the Irish property crash. In the past six years, it has discreetly funded every possible type of home in the country.

While many argue that we should not allow new forms of land ownership to disrupt the farm, farms are already in the process of disrupting themselves. There is a young generation of farmers that are in fact seeking to rent instead of buy land to improve their return on capital.

Jack Pierse and Aidan Corbett have just closed a $150m funding round that values their e-commerce financier at $1.6bn. They open up about their strategy for the business, how they negotiated the funding deal, and their plans for the future.

It took twenty years for Ireland to get its first unicorn. In the four years since, three others joined the list. And in the last two weeks, Ireland got two more. There are other signs our technology industry is powering up.

Whether we like it or not, institutional investors in Irish property are here to stay. That is why it is crucial that they are properly regulated.

The conflation of the pre- and post-Lehman experience of the Western banking system and that of China today is flawed. The Chinese financial system and its relationship to the broader economy is fundamentally different by design.