🚁 Manna takes flight in the US as Kingspan’s €900m bet wins over markets

13 August 2026

Good morning. TEXT…

1. Kenny Jacobs Wants Manna To Fly Like Ryanair. Former Ryanair executive and DAA chief Kenny Jacobs says Manna wants to become the “Ryanair of US drone delivery” as it launches in Tulsa, having paused Irish deliveries over planning difficulties. Manna wants 10 Tulsa bases by autumn and eventually more than 300. Jacobs also says his DAA successor should be paid around €1m as the airport operator searches for a new chief.

2. Kingspan’s €900m BMC Deal Gets Markets Excited. Kingspan shares jumped 7.5% to nearly €104 on Wednesday following its agreed acquisition of Meath-based BMC Manufacturing, extending a rise of almost 20% last week. Analysts are also rewriting forecasts with Davy saying BMC could help Kingspan deliver more than 25% earnings growth in 2027. The deal still requires regulatory clearance, but investors have already put a price on the strategy.

3. Irish Wealth Management Keeps Consolidating. Fairstone Ireland is taking over Mason Wealth Group in its largest acquisition to date, adding 17,000 clients and more than €450m under management to bring its total assets to €4bn, subject to regulatory approval. Meanwhile, PitchBook identifies eight Irish-headquartered companies, including Fonoa, Amarenco and Norm, as strong potential IPO candidates. It is a prediction rather than a listing pipeline, but Irish capital activity is spreading across stages.

4. Dublin’s Food Businesses Want More Front Doors. Sprout & Co is seeking its 12th Irish store on Liffey Street, although Dublin City Council wants revised plans citing “serious concerns” regarding storefront cladding before deciding on the application. Hatch Coffee is also seeking planning for a third café in Sandymount after profits more than doubled to €225,209 in the year to October 2025. Two different scales of business, but both are putting stronger trading behind another Dublin location.

5. Irish Companies Varying Earnings While Households Stay Wary. Homebuilder Evara doubled combined revenues across its main development companies to €256m in 2025, with profits above €60m, while Glen Dimplex’s revenue fell 9.3% to €793.6m and it recorded a €71m loss before reporting improved 2026 trading. Households remain cautious: 71% expect the economy to worsen, while mortgage interest repayments were among the costs rising in June.

US inflation eased from 3.5% to 3.4% in July, with core inflation falling to 2.5%, calming fears that the Federal Reserve may need to raise rates at its September meeting. Wall Street rose, led by chip and AI names, while European markets remained close to record territory despite Brent hovering near $90 as doubts over a Hormuz deal persisted. EasyJet cabin crew in France will strike on 15 and 16 August, threatening disruption during the summer peak in the midst of its takeover. Elsewhere, Big Tech’s AI boom is drawing scrutiny over roughly $1tn in reported off-balance-sheet spending commitments, while Norway’s sovereign wealth fund posted a record first-half profit as technology stocks drove returns.

Health & Pharma

Health & Pharma's dominant story this week was AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb going from merger talk to denial. Days after the Financial Times reported the pair had discussed a roughly $400bn combination, a senior source told Reuters there were no discussions and never had been. AstraZeneca shares, down around 9% on the original reports, recovered roughly 3% on the denial and Bristol Myers gave back a similar amount. Neither company has commented on record. This should now be treated as closed rather than pending and needs a genuinely new approach before it returns.

Ireland's pharma export engine showed its first real wobble as exports of the ingredients behind blockbuster weight-loss drugs, which surged to record highs last year, have dipped sharply, according to the Business Post. That sits alongside Wednesday's CSO data showing manufacturing production down 5% year-on-year in Q2. These likely reflect normalisation from an exceptional 2025 base, but the GLP-1 slowdown specifically raises questions about how durable that windfall was.

On the science side, a Stanford-led team used generative AI to design a complete, functional viral genome for the first time, producing 16 working bacteriophages from roughly 300 AI-generated designs. The work, published in Science, is aimed at antibiotic-resistant infections, but accompanying commentary in the same journal warned that oversight of generative genomics hasn't kept pace with the capability.

Closer to home, Dublin-based, Enterprise Ireland-backed Zolvia published independent clinical trial results showing its z-curcumin ingredient absorbed 71 times better than standard curcumin, ahead of a push into global food and supplement manufacturing. That is a small but concrete step for Irish deep-science moving from lab result to commercial evidence.

Forward watch: any investor follow-up on the AstraZeneca/BMS denial, and whether Stanford's virus-design work draws regulatory attention.

In Friday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Property & Energy.

Thursday - The Deal Desk…

Fairstone / Mason Wealth Group: Fairstone Ireland is buying Mason Wealth Group, adding more than €450m in assets and taking its Irish assets under management to around €4bn, subject to regulatory approval.

HLB Ireland / OMB: HLB Ireland is acquiring accountancy firm OMB, creating a combined business of around 150 staff.

Pandox / Strawberry: Dalata owner Pandox has signed Strawberry to operate its Bodø hotel under a long-term revenue-based lease from January.

Kingspan / BMC: Kingspan agreed its biggest-ever acquisition, paying €850m for Meath-based BMC with up to €50m more tied to profit targets. Regulatory clearance is still required.

H&MV Engineering: Exponent established a €750m continuation fund around the Limerick engineering group, valuing H&MV at €1.4bn alongside Apollo S3, Pantheon and SQ Capital.

DBS / China Chunlai: Hong Kong-listed China Chunlai agreed to acquire Dublin Business School for $127.5m (€110.5m), with completion conditions still outstanding.

BusinessPlus reports on Aussie Rules wages, with Mayo’s Kobe McDonald off to St Kilda, where even a Category B rookie can earn about €42,000 before match bonuses, not bad at 18. Back home, hospital car parks collected almost €18m last year, so finding one of the €20m-plus sitting unused in Tesco Clubcard vouchers might at least take the sting out of another Irish bill. At this rate, the real transfer market is finding somewhere free to park.

The Read – Business Post – Appetite For Construction? The State Must Stomach More Risk

Shane Dempsey argues Jack Chambers's new "risk appetite statements" miss the real problem. Officials never lacked permission to take risks, only confidence that good-faith judgement would be defended rather than punished at the Public Accounts Committee. He proposes two zero-cost reforms. Firstly, proportionate liability capped at insurable levels, and secondly, median price tendering, both drawn from Nordic models that delivered projects like Finland's Tampere Tramway early and under budget. With the revised NDP committing €275 billion to 2035, he warns statements alone won't shift two decades of embedded caution. Link: Appetite For Construction? The State Must Stomach More Risk

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