A look back at the week in business

THE NUMBER

€3.8 billion:Eircom's debt. The telecoms company risks breaching its loan covenants, theoretically triggering an automatic default, within 12 to 18 months if it doesn't take action.

"We're not going to get to the €35 billion Standard & Poor's suggested. I'm not sure where that came from."

Anglo boss Mike Aynsley says some estimates of the cost of saving the bank are overdone. The final bill will be more like €25 billion – so sighs of relief all-round then.

"BHP has raised questions about our ability to do business across the nutrient spectrum."

Canadian fertiliser group PotashCorp delivers a witty riposte to BHP Billiton’s efforts to woo its shareholders and its customers.

GOOD WEEK:

Kerry

The food group, not the county, was flavour of the month with investors, after predicting that earnings growth would be in the mid-teens this year. Its multinational ingredients division did most of the heavy lifting in the first half, with sales up 4 per cent at €1.8 billion, while revenues at its consumer division, including Dairygold, Denny and Galtee, were flat at €885 million.

Jimmy Choo

Or rather its owner, Towerbrook, which is looking at floating the designer footwear brand beloved of Jennifer Lopez and Sex and the Citycharacters just 3 ½ years after buying it for £185 million sterling. The business is now said to be worth £500 million. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are rumoured to have popped by to try out the adviser's job for size.

BAD WEEK:

Waterstone's

HMV shareholders want it to ditch Britain’s last remaining specialist bookstore chain if a turnaround plan for the business, which delivered profits of just £2.5 million sterling on sales of £500 million last year, fails to deliver a happy ending. HMV will publish a trading statement this month – which is unlikely to have any literary value – and shareholders will be watching carefully for clues about book sales.

The economy

Predictions that recovery is just around the corner rang hollow this week as virtually every indicator you can think of pointed the wrong way. Unemployment claims were up 2,500, retail sales were down 1 per cent, the number of people falling behind on their mortgage payments was up more than 10,000 year-on-year at 36,400 and more than 1,000 companies had gone to the wall by the end of August. The US and Britain may be heading for a double dip, but we’re just stuck in one deep trough.

Rating the detectives

Big corporations and organisations could soon find shifty men in shabby macs scrutinising their liabilities. Jules Kroll, founder of the eponymous private detective agency for corporates, is making his presence felt in the credit ratings business, hitherto dominated by the likes of Moody’s and Fitch. Last year he set up the Kroll Bond Ratings Agency and this week spent $5 million buying a smaller rival, Lace, in Maryland in the US.

What impact it’s going to have on the big players remains to be seen, but presumably they’ll anticipate the legendary private dick’s challenge by including a few dead bodies and lots of snappy dialogue in their reports.