Training institute to vote on merger with UCC

The members of the Irish Management Institute will vote today on a proposed merger with UCC which was originally scheduled to go ahead seven years ago.

The merger, which is expected to be ratified, will see UCC borrow €18m from AIB to pay for the IMI’s campus in Sandyford, Co Dublin, and invest a further €2m in the facility at a time when third-level funding is in crisis.

The merger was originally to go ahead seven years ago but was postponed because the IMI got into severe financial difficulty as a result of the recession. However, as the institute has come back into profit in recent years, the merger is back on track.