BWG last month appointed IBI Corporate Finance to advise on its strategic options. The company, of which 65% shareholder Electra backed a 220m management buyout in 2002, is expected to sell this time around for 400m or more.

Crawford owns 15% of BWG and his consortium is seen as the frontrunner given its familiarity with the company. Another 20% of the company is owned by Clohisey and other shareholders in Newhill, whose 115 Spar stores were bought for 45m in the 2002 buy-out.

The owner of the Spar and Mace brands in Ireland, BWG had 428 Spar outlets and 138 Mace outlets at the end of 2005. It has said that it plans to add 39 new Spar outlets and 11 new Mace stores this year.

PAN ANDEAN the exploration company chaired by John Teeling, has appointed Ivan Sandrea to its board. Sandrea is the principal oil supply analyst at OPEC. Pan Andean also said last week that it has begun work in Peru. It signed a contract for a lot covering 770,000 hectares in the central Ucayali jungle, where it plans to begin new seismic surveys in the near future.

Niall Tracey, Budweiser marketing director for Ireland, reading Checkout's Top 100 Brands issue at the Gravity Bar in the Guinness Storehouse "Together with our technical partners, Compania Consultora de Petroleo, we have begun the evaluation work required to identify the best drill locations, " the company said in a statement. Pan Andean also said that it is at a preliminary stage in assessing a potential exploration project in Iran.

AIB could see its stock price jump substantially on the back of continuing job growth, according to US brokerage Morningstar. Analyst Ganesh Rathnam said that the company's US stock, currently trading at about $52, has an inherent fair value of $65.

"In 2005, an estimated 70,000 migrants into Ireland spurred job growth by 5%, " said Rathnam. "In addition, most migrants are 25 to 44, an age range ripe for consuming a variety of "nancial services."

Others caution that rising housing costs could leave the bank exposed if the economy falters.

"We reiterate that AIB is a fastgrowth, high-quality bank that is attractively priced at today's levels, " Rathnam stated.

COCA-COLA HELLENIC BOTTLERS booked a 14.8m profit from the sale of its facilities on the Naas Road in Dublin this financial year. The company, the second-largest CocaCola bottler in the world, announced last year that it was closing the plant in order to consolidate production at a single operation in Lisburn, Co Antrim. The plant there is undergoing a 78m expansion and is expected to be operational within the first six months of next year.

"Our Irish project, which involves rationalising production lines, relocating manufacturing and streamlining our warehouses is progressing well, " said the company, which released Q2 results recently.

Net income for the quarter rose to 167.8m from 140.8m a year earlier, it said. Sales climbed 16% to 1.58bn, driven by a 29% increase in countries such as Russia, Romania, and Ukraine that Coca-Cola HBC classi"es as emerging markets.

THE BCI (Broadcasting Commission Ireland) is to establish a broadcast archive. The commission last week appointed Dr Ruth-Blandina Quinn to head up the project, which will archive new TV and radio programmes of Irish cultural and historical interest. Quinn previously had responsibility over research underlying the children's advertising code and programming standards.