logo
Famed Ivy to open second restaurant on Dawson Street

Famed Ivy to open second restaurant on Dawson Street

Irish Times18-06-2025

Having earned the distinction seven years ago of being the Ivy Collection's first location outside the UK,
Dawson Street
is set to become home to another of the group's restaurants.
While the details of its arrival on the street have yet to be confirmed, The Irish Times understands that the Asian-inspired Ivy Asia has signed a deal to occupy the 12,500sq ft restaurant/retail space on the ground-floor and basement level of number 12 Dawson Street. The letting was handled by Savills, who declined to comment on the matter.
Better known as the former, longstanding headquarters of New Ireland Assurance, number 12 Dawson Street was redeveloped in recent years by Paddy McKillen jnr's Oakmount and its partners, Core Capital, and is home today to Goodbody Stockbrokers. The space being taken by the Ivy Asia had, at one point, been earmarked for a restaurant to be operated by McKillen jnr's Press Up hospitality group. Number 12 Dawson Street is located immediately adjacent to the block occupied by the Ivy Collection's existing restaurant, the Ivy Dawson.
Both the Ivy Dawson and Ivy Asia form part of the wider Ivy Collection, a diverse group of restaurants, cafes and brasseries under the same ownership as the original Ivy restaurant in Soho, in London.
READ MORE
They are part of Richard Caring's Caprice Holdings, which operates a string of high-profile restaurants and hospitality outlets across London and the UK, including Scott's, J Sheeky, Daphne's and Sexy Fish.
According to its website, the Ivy Asia aims to bring diners through what it describes as 'a journey of the senses with a dining and drinking story inspired by Asian influence'.
As is the case with its sister restaurants in the Ivy Collection, the Asian-themed venues 'offer a luxurious and theatrical setting in both design and decor'.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Where is the value in increasing the Help-to-Buy scheme threshold?
Where is the value in increasing the Help-to-Buy scheme threshold?

Irish Times

time16 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Where is the value in increasing the Help-to-Buy scheme threshold?

Pre-budget submissions are all about pleadings. Every special interest group in the State makes a pitch for more resources. They all consider their proposals to be in the wider public and economic interest. Some are worthy, many more are largely self-interested. This year the whole process appears to have kicked off earlier than usual, perhaps on the understanding that the largesse of recent years is unlikely to be repeated this time around. In the first place, there is no election. Worries for the medium-term health of Europe's most open economy in a climate where tariffs, trade wars and an absence of consistency on policy are increasingly the norm also will inevitably push Ministers towards a more cautious approach. And for what money is available, the need is to prioritise investment in infrastructure. Expensive upgrades to electricity, water and sewerage networks that are increasingly being cited by foreign direct investors among factors counting against Ireland Inc are needed. READ MORE An EY survey on Friday found that more than two-thirds of Irish businesses 'are worried about securing enough energy to meet future needs', which is an extraordinary number. Put together, it means more things are going to be a tough ask to get over the line. [ First-time buyers in Dublin now locked out of Help-to-Buy scheme, warns Savills Opens in new window ] It seems a strange time then for estate agent Savills to be picking CSO house price data to press for an increase in the upper threshold for the Help-to-Buy scheme. Savills says first-time buyers in Dublin are paying an average of €515,000 for a home, putting them beyond the €500,000 ceiling for Help-to-Buy. It wants that ceiling increased to at least €621,000 to take account of inflation, it says. First, averages are notoriously prone to manipulation by singular expensive property sales. Second, the more reliable median data from the same CSO note shows that prices exceed €460,000 only in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown among the four Dublin local authority areas. [ Developers are bluffing when they say lower prices would undermine viability of house building Opens in new window ] Then there is the maximum available tax refund under Help-to-Buy, which is €30,000. Ignoring that when calling for a higher ceiling is not making property more affordable for first-time buyers in general, only for the very wealthy. It is worth remembering that while the marketing speaks about providing a helping hand for first-time buyers – with even the scheme's name selected for the same reason – Help-to-Buy was from the start a scheme put together to help developers make the numbers stack up on building starter homes. That's not happening, as supply constraints (and prices rising at their fastest rate in 10 years) attest, so for the State – and those first-time buyers – what is the value of widening the incentive?

Paul Coulson faces last stand in battle to retain control of Ardagh
Paul Coulson faces last stand in battle to retain control of Ardagh

Irish Times

time17 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Paul Coulson faces last stand in battle to retain control of Ardagh

Ten years ago last month, Dublin businessman Paul Coulson walked away from a €3 billion deal to buy a glass-bottle business being sold by French building materials group Saint-Gobain. It seemed a rare moment of restraint for a man in a hurry, having spent the previous 15 years turning a once sleepy Irish bottle company into a multibillion-euro packaging giant – Ardagh Group – through a series of purchases funded by debt raised in the high-cost, junk-bond market. It would not last long. Less than a year later, Coulson unveiled a similar-sized transaction, but one that would catapult Ardagh into the business of making cans for beers and fizzy drinks. Today, that business – Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP), whose customers range from Coca-Cola and Heineken to Nestlé – has surfaced as a prized asset as Coulson and holders of some of wider group's $12.5 billion (€10.7 billion) of borrowings scramble to salvage what they can from an empire saddled with too much debt. Coulson effectively owns 36 per cent of Ardagh Group. READ MORE Ardagh Group has acknowledged for more than a year that it needs to reduce its liabilities, after both its glass and beverage cans businesses had been hit since the Covid-19 pandemic by inflation, soaring interest rates, and soft consumer demand on both sides of the Atlantic. The heavily-indebted business proposed in March that a group of senior unsecured bondholders write off much of the $2.32 billion they are owed in exchange for taking full ownership of the glass containers part of the business. The plan also envisaged Ardagh Group spinning its shares in AMP into new company (NewCo). This would be 80 per cent owned by Coulson and other existing Ardagh Group shareholders – with the unsecured creditors receiving the remaining 20 per cent. Holders of a further $1.79 billion of the group's riskiest debt, so-called payment-in-kind bonds issued by a holding company at the top of the Ardagh corporate tree, know they're toast, with these notes trading below 5 per cent of their original value. Talks with the unsecured creditors broke down in May after they pitched a proposal that would see them take 40 per cent, rather than 20 per cent, of AMP, which has seen its prospects improve in recent quarters, even as the glass containers arm of the group continues to grapple with weak demand. The unsecured creditors also wanted the $784 million of preference shares they were being offered in the NewCo to be increased to $1.07 billion. AMP, in which Ardagh Group has a 76 per cent stake, is listed on Wall Street, where investors have also recently come to appreciate the improving outlook for this business – even as the glass side struggles. The market value of AMP, which has $3.98 billion of ring-fenced borrowings, has jumped more than 45 per cent to $2.59 billion so far this year. This was driven by a spike in April when its chief, Oliver Graham, signalled that the business had 'turned a corner', helped by a rebound in demand for energy drinks, sparkling water and health segments. The value of Coulson's indirect 27 per cent stake in AMP has increased as a result to more than $700 million. This is well off the $1.7 billion it was worth when the stock debuted on the New York Stock Exchange almost four years ago. It is also a fraction of the now 73-year-old's €2.4 billion interest in the wider Ardagh Group when it peaked in April 2021 – before the group delisted and floated its beverage cans unit. It emerged last week that certain bondholders have offered Coulson – who remains on the board of the group, having retired as chairman in late 2023 – and other investors in Ardagh Group $250 million to hand over total control of the empire to creditors and walk away. Shareholders include management and investors that remained on board a tiny version of the current group that was listed in Dublin more than two decades ago. The bondholders clearly do not feel the need to keep Coulson on after a restructuring. This differs from the case of fellow former junk-bond darling, Denis O'Brien , when his overindebted Digicel mobile phone company ran out of road two years ago. Digicel had no equity value when its bondholders took control in a subsequent debt-for-equity swap. However, the creditors left O'Brien with a 10 per cent stake and stock warrants that would entitle him to a further 10 per cent, subject to the company meeting certain targets, knowing they needed him to maintain key relationships with regulators and politicians across its 25 emerging and, in some cases, frontier markets. The problem for Ardagh Group bondholders is the corporate web structure – including a company set up in April 2022, at a time when interest rates were soaring globally, under the group to hold its 76 per cent stake in AMP. This was designated a so-called unrestricted subsidiary, putting its assets out of reach of group creditors. The directors of that subsidiary sought fit last year to set up another unit to hold the prized asset. Bondholders thinking they can wave off Coulson and a small number of legacy investors in Ardagh Group with a $250 million check had better have the bottle for a battle.

New York Times and ‘Germany's Wordle' owner seek to reschedule UK trademark hearing on Wordle
New York Times and ‘Germany's Wordle' owner seek to reschedule UK trademark hearing on Wordle

Irish Times

time17 hours ago

  • Irish Times

New York Times and ‘Germany's Wordle' owner seek to reschedule UK trademark hearing on Wordle

The New York Times , owners of the vocabulary game Wordle, and the owner of 'Germany's Wordle' are seeking to reschedule their October UK trademark hearing. The hearing was originally booked for October 10th, but according to the UK Intellectual Property Office the parties have requested a different date, which is currently expected to be later this year. Wordle was developed in 2021 by Josh Wardle and became popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. The New York Times subsequently purchased the game in 2022 for an undisclosed low seven-figure sum. READ MORE The UK hearing is part of a long-running dispute between the New York Times and Stefan Heine, a Hamburg-based puzzle maker, over trademark rights to the name Wordle. According to a court filing by the US newspaper, immediately after it was publicised that the New York Times had 'acquired the rights to the [Wordle] game and the mark', Mr Heine filed a trademark application in Germany, the rights to which were secured on February 1st, 2022. [ Róisín Ingle: I have a great Wordle start word – it's just a bit rude Opens in new window ] According to the New York Times filing, 'he then followed that with a flurry of international trademark application designations for Wordle ... in Norway, Switzerland, [with] the EUIPO [the European Intellectual Property Office], and the UK, … [with] no lawful basis'. These moves were met with legal measures in the various jurisdictions by the New York Times, which in turn are being contested by Mr Heine, according to the newspaper's filing. In July 2023, the New York Times applied to register the trademark for Wordle in the UK, and in August of that year it filed an invalidation action against Mr Heine's UK Wordle trademark registration. The newspaper claimed that Mr Heine's registration should be cancelled due to a risk of passing off. This is based on the New York Times' claimed use of the word Wordle throughout the UK since June 2021. It is also claimed that Mr Heine's Wordle trademark was applied for in 'bad faith'. In November 2023, Mr Heine opposed the New York Times' trademark application on the basis of his earlier trademark application in August 2022, which was protected in December 2022. The Hamburg puzzle maker also claims a priority filing date of February 1st, 2022, from his German Wordle trademark registration. Meanwhile, the New York Times claimed that on January 31st, 2022, it acquired all of Mr Wardle's rights in the Wordle game and its trademark, which the US paper claimed Mr Wardle created 'around January 2021'. The newspaper is also claiming that by February 1st, 2022, Wordle was a 'well-known trademark' as per the UK legislation and the Paris Convention. A spokesperson for the New York Times confirmed that the paper is opposing the registration of the UK trademark for Mr Heine's Wordle 'as part of our standard IP protection efforts, because we think it is likely to cause confusion among consumers about the source of the mark'. The legal representatives for Mr Heine – Murgitroyd & Company – said that as the cases were ongoing they were unable to comment 'as we are keen not to prejudice our client's case'.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store