Ulick McEvaddy – Anglo investors were “heroes”…haha good one Ulick
This has got to be a joke – Ulick McEvaddy, the successful Omega Air Inc co-founder, Fine Gael supporter and Libertas donator said on RTE Radio today that the the 10 individuals who were loaned €451 million by Anglo Irish Bank to buy its shares – a transaction which would have nicely boosted protected its share price by not allowing 75 million shares being offloaded by Seán Quinn to hit the market all at once– were ‘heroes’ supporting the Irish Economy.
He went on to say that he’d have also participated in the share purchase transaction had he been invited.
Heroes on a handout
No shit Ulick. If someone came up to me and said “Hey buddy, want to borrow some money to buy shares in us? By the way, if the shares tank, don’t worry about paying back the money…we just want to make our share price look good” I think I might just have accepted.
Yes, these people have NO obligation to repay more than 25% of the money…other than a moral one. The bank loaned them money to buy shares in itself…and it was securing the loan itself because the shares were the security for 75% the loan….if the share value went up the investors could just keep repaying the loan, confident that the shares are worth more than they’re paying for them. If the share price drops they can just stop paying and walk away with no legal obligation to pay off the loan.
But the share price would never drop, right?
As it stands, the investors have repaid €83 million, or 18.4% of the loan but says that it is “not optimistic about recovering the rest of the loans.”
Yet another mind-boggling event in the banana-banking industry in Ireland.
There still isn’t any reason for these people to be named though. The bank set up this ridiculous transaction, therefore the bank as an entity is to blame. Who takes responsibility for the actions of a corporate entity? The directors do, and to some extent the auditors (Ernst & Young).
And the Financial Regulator has finally realised that it has been misled by Anglo Irish…ya think?
Why are the executives being allowed to leave the ship
On Wednesday the chairman of Irish Nationwide, Michael Walsh, resigned…at a time when he believes “It is clear to me that Irish Nationwide Building Society cannot survive without reorganisation and significant Government support.” He was just the latest in the line of top executives to leave the ship when it starts sinking, including Denis Casey, Peter Fitzpatrick and David Gantly from Irish Life & Permanent, and the ringleaders at Anglo Irish, Sean Fitzpatrick, David Drumm and Lar Bradshaw.
These people got us all into this mess – why are they just allowed to walk away when the shit hits the fan? They should be forced to stay and work night and day until they sort this situation out.
Let them sit in a national government
Enda Kenny is doing us no favours shouting in the Dáil for this and that. Shouting does no good at this point. We all know that the government are utterly incompetent and probably as lacking in integrity and morals as the bankers who are in the spotlight at the moment.
The opposition have been shouting for years, and have evidently accomplished utterly nothing by doing so. Lets see what they can do when they all have to shoulder the responsibility together.
A general election is the last damn thing we need at the moment. We need unity, decision and strong leadership. We need a firm plan to get us out of this, and the steadfastness to stick to it. Unfortunately this sort of action is inconceivable to the party in power at the moment because they fear the outcry by the people who kept them in power.
We’re all going to suffer financially no matter what happens. Make the hard decisions and for fucks sake get on with it and do it before there’s nothing left to salvage.
Updated on the 21st because there were some inaccuracies regarding the loans for purchase of shares and to give a wee bit more info on the man Ulick.
UI matters 
John said,
February 20, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Until we acknowledge how we got into this mess in the first place, we cannot really work to get out of it. McEvaddy’s contribution on the radio today summed it up. He more or less argued that to get out of this problem, we needed to do what got us into this situation again. He wanted the likes of Fitzpatrick and Goggins to be involved with the government to get us out of this crisis.
Your approach would have us doing the same on a political level. Everyone in the current administration and their supporters who they have appointed to boards around the country, are the people who have brought us to this abyss. They have failed to admit their culapility, and acknowledge how they have truly fucked this country up. Until they do so, we cannot really move forward. To that end, the opposition have a duty to bang the drum of governmental incompetence until the government accept that they have fucked up, and realise that they played a massive role in that. Otherwise, all we will get is what we have got to date – a sticking plaster response utterly inadequate to our crisis.
interface said,
February 21, 2009 at 1:11 am
They’ve been banging the drum of governmental incompetence for the last what, three terms of government? It hasn’t got them anywhere – we’re still in this mess.
The government will never publicly admit that they have fucked up because of the political losses they will incur by doing so.
Accordingly there are three options – a general election which would paralyse the political machinery for the months up to the election; continue as we are with the opposition lambasting the government to absolutely no effect; or have the opposition actually work with the government and take the unpopular action that is necessary to resolve the situation.
Without cross-party support that hard action will never be possible.
Unpalatable as it may be, the likes of Fitzpatrick and Goggin are those who have the greatest knowledge of the way the banking system works, and they are the ones best placed to implement the measures which should be taken. It will not be popular action, and they should not be rewarded for doing so – rather this is what they should do to make up for the mess they have gotten us into.
Charlotte said,
March 25, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Anglo Irish Bank seemed to tolerate low standards in high places I am aware that they currently have on a debtors list a current sitting high court judge who is using his clout to prevent his name been released The same judge has set himself up a Foundation in the UK for £82m sterling using his wife’s name intials are “RW” and his late mother in law’s age The address for residency he is using is currently been investigated to see if the house is occupied or empty and the registered business address appears to be one where correspondence is just sent on to the person
The judge has been using the assets for his own personal use since his mother died nine years ago well with £82m lodged in a bank account a person could quite easily live off the interest alone
It would be very unusual for a barrister to have accumulated that type of income in their career and certainly not in the type of advocacy this judge did as a barrister where most of his came from state funded court cases He only appeared in one tribunal and that was in a small way his earnings for that tribunal in the 1980’s were I believe £40,000
It is very much a case of low standards in high places as this judge is one of the most prominent judges in the central criminal courts and he is overseeing justice to others yet his fellow judges consider him fit to practice on the bench