Any Other Business John Burns Navan man John Murphy and his $11m Coke payday
John Murphy, the Navan man who is second-in-command at Coca-Cola globally, got some extra fizz in his pay packet last year.
The Trinity graduate, who joined the drinks giant as an auditor in 1988, is now the president and chief financial officer. While his salary was a modest-looking $1,055,750 (€972,000) in 2023, according to a proxy statement filed to the SEC, stock awards and other benefits brought his total package to $11,126,145. That was up from $9,056,312 the year before.
There are other perks. The Coca-Cola statement explains that Murphy, who relocated to America in January 2019, gets to whizz around the globe on a corporate jet. Indeed, “use of the company aircraft is the board’s strongly preferred method for all travel by Murphy”, as well as by CEO James Quincey, “for both business and personal travel”.
This is for security purposes, they say, and to ensure the pair can be immediately available to respond to business priorities from anywhere in the world. tame inflation by taking money out of circulation for a while. Some people even managed not to blow the lot afterwards on apartments in Cape Verde or along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.
Could a similarly bold scheme, this time encouraging people to buy shares, finance the next Ryanair, Smurfit or CRH?
Used to setting fashion standards, might tailor Louis Copeland also become a trendsetter in retail property?
He’s just bought No 18, Wicklow Street – his flagship shop – from the Davy Irish Property Fund for “in or around €2m”.
Few retailers in the Grafton Street area own their own premises, Weir & Sons jewellers being a notable exception. Many familyrun businesses did fashionable sale-and-leaseback deals in the Seventies and Eighties – only to find that rents became too high and they went to the wall.
“It’s nice to be the owner rather than paying rent,” Louis agrees.
“You’re your own landlord and the boss of your own destiny. Hopefully this will pay off in the years to come.”
Madrid, then I think my contract is very good value for Ryanair shareholders,” he responded.
Then, explaining how there’s no such thing as bad publicity, he pointed out: “A lot of people who have never heard of Ryanair suddenly Google it and go: ‘Jesus, look at the airfares!’”
Many WSJ readers were left unimpressed by O’Leary’s four-letter fusillades. “A limited vocabulary is the sign of a small mind,” reckoned one Jeff McGuire.
“Wouldn’t fly Ryanair on a bet,” harrumphed a Paul Lahaye. “You can keep it, along with your potty mouth. Your mother would be ashamed of you.”
Hmm, somehow we doubt that. Then reader Thomas Manoni suggested “Michael should take time and examine his conscience”.
Yes but once he’s finished doing that, Mr Manoni, he’ll probably just tell you to f **k off.
The Pantry, a rapidly expanding chain of Irish cafes, is about to open a restaurant in the Swan Centre, Rathmines, on part of a site previously occupied by Fallon & Byrne. It is the 10th restaurant the Wexford-based business has opened in the last two years, the company’s Mark Hayes tells me.
The Pantry, which specialises in all-day breakfasts and pancakes, started in Cork 15 years ago, and Rathmines will be its 16th location, a dozen of which operate as franchises. The Rathmines one will be operated by Shubham Saxena and his wife Bianca.
“We’re looking at the UK later this year,” says Mark, who runs the business with his brother Paul and father Michael. The Pantry offers franchises for €150k to open a fully fitted full-service restaurant, less than some competitors. “We want people to make a profit from day one,” Mark explains.
The Naval Service is listing badly these days, with just one ship out on patrol in recent weeks.
Last year the Government decided to decommission the flagship LE Eithne, as well as the smaller LE Ciara and LE Orla – but the amount the State is able to recoup from pensioned-off vessels is rapidly declining.
No new use for LE Eithne has been found – not even as a museum piece – so it has to be recycled in an environmentally sound manner, along with its smaller sister ships. This is going to cost.
“To date, €15,461 has been spent on inspection services for LE Eithne as part of the disposal process,” Tánaiste and Defence Minister Micheál Martin has told the Dáil.
Moving it from Haulbowline to Cork Harbour and then towing it to Belgium for recycling will incur “additional costs”, the size of which we do not yet know.
What a difference from 2001, when the former LE Deirdre was sold by public auction and fetched IR£190,000. In 2013, the former LE Emer was sold for almost €381,000.
Two years later, LE Aoife was given to Malta to help with humanitarian work and we got a donation of €30,000. And in 2017, the former LE Aisling was sold at auction for €110,000 to a splendidly named Dutch shipbroker: one Dick Van Der Kamp.