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A CLARE-BASED COMPANY badly hit by a cyber attack four years ago has posted further multi-million euro losses.
Loyaltybuild, which operates customer loyalty programmes for big companies, also said that while it will maintain its presence in Ireland, it plans to cut staff here.
Sales at the company dropped last year, falling from €30 million in 2016 to just under €26 million in 2015.
The firm made an operating loss of about €9 million, roughly in line with 2015. When everything was taken into account, Loyaltybuild made a full-year loss of €8.5 million, compared to a loss of €9.1 million the year before.
This brought accumulated losses at the businesses to almost €34 million. Despite a large drop in the number of people employed by the company, from 119 to 85, staff costs surged from €4.7 million to €6.8 million.
The bulk of the firm’s business came from European markets outside Ireland, with around one-fifth of its turnover generated in the Republic.
In the director’s report, Loyaltybuild said that it is changing its businesses model, becoming a “predominantly digital-led business” and will shed some of its Irish staff.
“The company must focus on becoming an agile, leaner business,” it said. “In addition, the company’s relationship with a significant client in Ireland terminated as of 31 December 2016.
“The company will maintain its presence in Ireland and operate with a reduced workforce.”
The company said its parent company, US group Affinion, would continue providing financial support for at least this year and that its restructuring was expected to cost around €795,000.
Cyber attack
Loyaltybuild is perhaps best known for being the victim of a major cyber attack in November 2013. The breach involved the personal data of 1.5 million people being exposed, including the full credit card details of 376,000 customers.
After the attack, the company was forced to stop trading for a period of time after it was hit with a prohibition order from the Data Protection Commissioner. Whoever was behind the cyber attack was never publicly identified.
Loyaltybuild was founded by some of Ireland’s best-known businessmen, including hotelier Sean Lyne and current Avolon chief executive Dómhnal Slattery. In 2008 they sold the firm to Affinion.
Loyaltybuild did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fora.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and posted on Fora.ie
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(in 18 yo D4 girl accent) Omg! I knew there were famines and dictatorship and stuff but only 18 hairstyles for girls! We’ve GOT to help these people…… It’s like totes oppression?
Ha, the men’s choice doesn’t really look that different from the choice available to Irish men up until the 80′s. My class confirmation photo (1987) will back this up.
Yes, trimmer setting 0 to 5 now is such an improvement! :-)
It’s the same haircut, just combed a different way. And are blondes barred from North Korea?
Sod the begrudgers Aoife, keep up the good work.
Thanks Noel :)
Aoife you should send them a photo of your hair style and tell them to get with the programme! ;)
Ha! Thankfully my hair now is much longer and dare I say better than it is in my horrible photo ;)
The journal.ie seems to get an awful lot of its stories or ideas for stories from reddit. For readers of both, it’s gets a bit déjà vu-ey at times.
Hey John – I actually saw this on Twitter, being RT’d by a lot of people.
I checked out where the photo came from (the photographer’s name and agency), then got it from Press Association. I noticed that the caption was wildly different from the one being tweeted, so I googled it and found the Reddit/Imgur and Guardian pieces.
Also, Reddit is a site with multiple forums where people share a huge volume of information they want other people to see, either original stuff or things already on the net
.
So it’s only natural that there will be crossover between it and other sites to some small extent. If people don’t want their videos/images shared by anyone, they probably shouldn’t put it on Reddit ;)
Thanks
Aoife
Boom! John just got served!
I find this site is brilliant for catching up on what happened on the internet a couple of days ago.
Ok then. Off to the shop with you, to buy yourself a newspaper if ye want the news!
No 11 is obviously the pick of the litter.
I wonder what their policy is on Brazilians or Hollywoods and do they have photos of them too ;)
The journal is a complete joke of a news source, have they traded in journalism for reddit users?
In Ireland, women only wear 2 to 3 types of haircuts. Boring… : /
Actually I think Irish women are very diverse in their style and colour choice. Perhaps that’s not the case in your locality but is certainly not the case of Irish women in general.
АЛЕКСАНДРЪ ХАИШ , are you only looking at the auld ones? Or are you living in the back arse of nowhere? LOL. Irish women are very experimental with their hair! Different colours, different styles….generally speaking our hairstyles reflect our personalities so there’s no way we all have the same style :)
No
If you say so Sean. Aoife just confirmed that at times there can be a crossover.
I don’t see the most popular irish style here . The old arrive on the back of a motor bike look.
Can’t imagine Toni & Guy doing too great a trade
#Toni&CreamOfSumYungGuy
What about the vo5 adds :O
It makes perfect sense, in a dictatorial North Korean line of thinking…
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