The Irish Banking Bother: /Anglo 10 /Gardaí raid Anglo offices/ AIB '08 results 2nd March

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0217/inbs.html


The bank stories are all starting to blend and blur and melt into one. Please put any further Anglo/Irish Nationwide/IL&P info in here unless you want to start a particular angle on them or something about them. Candide started a question thread on the goings on between Anglo and IL&P - that kind of thing.

Feckin hell.

Are INBS & Irish Nationwide not the same thing?

Thanks coc. So many bank names so little money.

Dan Boyle on Morning Ireland who says now that the Chairman has resigned it asks questions of others working there.

He says we have seen people stand aside who have questioned the competence of their own actions...

George Lee was on first and he anticipated there could be a 'Night of the Long Knives' soon for top bankers....

Was the Anglo legislation rushed through too quickly, thereby bailing out a small coterie of individuals who themselves must have been systemic to the Irish banking system.

The plot is as thickening as thieves.



THE IDENTITY of the 10 investors who were given €300 million in loans by Anglo Irish Bank to support its share price last year has emerged as a key political issue with the Opposition intensifying pressure on the Government to justify the decision to nationalise the bank.

In the Dáil yesterday Taoiseach Brian Cowen denied that he or any of his Ministers knew the identity of the wealthy individuals whose debts of €300 million will have to be picked up by the taxpayer as a result of the Government’s decision to nationalise the bank.

Mr Cowen was asked by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny for the dates on which he became aware of developments at Anglo Irish.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0218/1224241332510.html

I wonder who they are... I wonder, I wonder...

If you look back to last year, it is very obvious that the value of Anglo was being supported. I think there was a line in the sand at 2 Euro (from memory so may be different) Some of us commented on how it looked a bit strange especially given the comparative falls in BOI.

Squire wrote:

If you look back to last year, it is very obvious that the value of Anglo was being supported. I think there was a line in the sand at 2 Euro (from memory so may be different) Some of us commented on how it looked a bit strange especially given the comparative falls in BOI.

I think someone definitely commented on it at the time from the prices but I couldn't find it when I went looking the other day.

If someone casually on the internet notices it then of course investors notice it. If investors notice it, WTF didn't the GOVT. notice it before nationalising this bank.

Could we not have taken our bloody time and went in there with a fine tooth comb and seperate out total shite from anything worthwhile ??

As a professional upstanding Auditor of nine years I am disgusted.

It may have been on p.ie? It was definitely picked up!

It was commented on on the ISEQ threads on a few occasions. It was obvious from the graph that there was intervention.

Quote :

thereby bailing out a small coterie of individuals who themselves must have been systemic to the Irish banking system.

Banking, or political system? Are they distinguishable?

As well as the ten, I would still like to know who are the 6 Cabinet Ministers who wouldn't say whether or not they had Anglo Irish loans.

Being told by Brian Cowen that he accepted Anglo Irish's advisors word for it that nothing untoward had been done was a bit of a jaw dropping moment.

A good government would be beating the hedges of Europe now for a couple of decent, very sharp bankers, Irish or otherwise, to help us sort this out in the interests of the majority of the population.

I don't see how the 10 individuals are being bailed out?

The problem with their loans is that the rumour as I heard on Radio 1 last night is that the loans were non-recourse loans, i.e., the most the bank could recover from the individuals was the shares [EDIT] and the other security provided by the purchasers. That appears to amount to 25% of the amount loaned. This differs from your normal mortgage where the bank will take your house and still be able to chase you for the debt for the rest of your life.

Accordingly, the individuals did not require the Nationalisation to bail them out as they had no exposure beyond the shares. If the nationalisation gives anything to them for the shares then this will go directly to Anglo towards repaying the loans, i.e. it makes no difference to the individuals.

Also, as far as I can make out it was the Regulator and not Cowen who accepted the initial representation from Anglo's advisor's that the arrangement was legal.

Also, the p.ie financial analysis is a cod (or a red herring depending on your taste in fish). It appears that the share transaction was directly between shareholders. Accordingly, it should not have skewed the rest of the market so as to show up as support. Normal transactions and share prices should not have been affected relative to the other banks. The real effect of the transaction was to avoid a massive drop in Anglo relative to the other banks by flooding the market with shares which were the subject of contracts-for-difference.

The operation of contracts-for-difference to avoid tax and probably other charges was fatal and that it was legal is a scandal of regulation.

EDIT: The big winner here seem to be Quinn who managed to finance the purchase of his 15% in Anglo, notwithstanding that he subsequently lost it. If had not financed that then he would have had to come up with more dosh later ans that would not have been easy.

The big losers are the 10 investors who stepped in to support the bank. It is hard to know what pressures they were under to do this deal. If it is true that the regulator knew of the deal in advance then it is quite possible that the investment was done out of a sense of duty or loyalty to the Irish market. Even if the shares had held steady or increased slightly paying interest on €300m is no joke. It is hard to imagine people going into that deal willingly while shares were on a downward trajectoty. It is no wonder the bank had to offer such generous terms to get them on board at all.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Squire wrote:

If you look back to last year, it is very obvious that the value of Anglo was being supported. I think there was a line in the sand at 2 Euro (from memory so may be different) Some of us commented on how it looked a bit strange especially given the comparative falls in BOI.

I think someone definitely commented on it at the time from the prices but I couldn't find it when I went looking the other day.

If someone casually on the internet notices it then of course investors notice it. If investors notice it, WTF didn't the GOVT. notice it before nationalising this bank.

Could we not have taken our bloody time and went in there with a fine tooth comb and seperate out total shite from anything worthwhile ??

As a professional upstanding Auditor of nine years I am disgusted.

It's much worse than this lads. Dan Boyle was on Vincent Browne (with an E) last night and it was put to him that nationalisation of Anglo was on table the night of the guarantee (29th Sep). Boyle didn't dispute this but said that a different decision was made on the night. Fair enough, but what's amazing is the admission that there was a Bill already prepared that night (which wasn't used ulitmately until the middle of January) and must have taken a few weeks at least to draft. So, the Government had obviously decided in principle by mid september that Anglo might need to be nationalised and 4 months elapsed before they actually did so. They had four months to shift through the shit and uncover anything and everything that was to be uncovered. And still 5 months later they're slipping on banana (republic) skins. Constatin Gurdgiev said last night that the Government are grossly incompetent and he didn't just mean they are assholes, he meant they are incapable of doing the job they are paid to do. They are clowns, thieves or thieving clowns. Take your pick.

Minister Lenihan said in the Dail that the bill was in preparation far a number of months as they feared nationalisation could become necessary.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I don't see how the 10 individuals are being bailed out?

The problem with their loans is that the rumour as I heard on Radio 1 last night is that the loans were non-recourse loans, i.e., the most the bank could recover from the individuals was the shares. This differs from your normal mortgage where the bank will take your house ans still be able to chase you for the debt for the rest of your life.

Accordingly, the individuals did not require the Nationalisation to bail them out as they had no exposure beyond the shares. If the nationalisation gives anything to them for the shares then this will go directly to Anglo towards repaying the loans, i.e. it makes no difference to the individuals.

Also, as far as I can make out it was the Regulator and not Cowen who accepted the initial representation from Anglo's advisor's that the arrangement was legal.

Also, the p.ie financial analysis is a cod (or a red herring depending on your taste in fish). It appears that the share transaction was directly between shareholders. Accordingly, it should not have skewed the rest of the market so as to show up as support. Normal transactions and share prices should not have been affected relative to the other banks. The real effect of the transaction was to avoid a massive drop in Anglo relative to the other banks by flooding the market with shares which were the subject of contracts-for-difference.

The operation of contracts-for-difference to avoid tax and probably other charges was fatal and that it was legal is a scandal of regulation.

Would you be able to confirm that it was broken down into amounts just below the level at which it had by law to have been sold on the open market? Some transactions are now under investigation precisely because they were made "under the table" in the way you describe.

The rest of your post confirms that the effect of the arrangement was to articificially and deceptively boost the share price above the level it would otherwise have had. So the bank loaned REAL money to these individuals (presumed to be shareholders) who then bought shares in a rapidly declining market in order to maintain the share price. There was no guarantee that the money would ever be paid back, and it appears that it won't. The REAL money was presumably borrowed by the Bank from a third party, will be paid back by us. We will be paying for their reckless, hopeless and possibly illicit attempt to maintain the value of their shares.

(emphasis on real, as there is so much paper junk about)

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Minister Lenihan said in the Dail that the bill was in preparation far a number of months as they feared nationalisation could become necessary.

What happened to change their minds ?

At this point, the ins and outs of Anglo and the whole Irish banking fiasco might lead to apportioning the blame on bankers and business people who have been toying with the system for some time. I won't hold my breath.

Last year we were told the Irish banking system was sound.
Then we had the blanket gaurantee and were told problem solved.
The head of one of the main banks says his bank will never need state aide.
Then we nationalised Anglo. Everything else is sound.
Then we recapitalised the two major banks.
We find out that loans were made from a bank to Anglo to shore up their balance sheet before the nationalisation of Anglo.
We find out that a syndicate also bought shares in Anglo as a share price play(?).
Top govt ministers don't know details about many of the transactions they made and passed into law.

(The last sentence is interesting. The govt, just like the bankers in the recent past, have decided not to fulfill some due diligence requirements when buying banks or lending money (recaps). My, my, we don't like to learn from past mistakes.)

Anyhow, there are many more sentences that could be added above and a nice little narrative made and pieced together into a coherent story. As things have panned out, I don't think a coherent story would be anything more than a fairy tale at this stage. Many decisions, indecisions and complete disregard for fundamental rules of conducting business along ethical lines have come home to roost.

While when can draft air tight rules and laws to ensure the average wage-earner obeys all strictures without recourse, we've allowed politicians to draft laws with loop-holes and other legal mechanisms to muddy laws applicable to a whole raft of business dealings. If you have big bucks at your disposal the law is a mere toy.

We've put the financial regulator at arms length based on new legal structures after the entry into the Euro. Subsequently, the regulatory arm seems to have taken an 8 year sabbatical, and assigning culpability to anyone in govt or within the regulatory office is hindered by its new legal structure. A prolonged bout of finger pointing would take place, and nothing would be solved.

We've also introduce draconian legislation to limit access to govt information.

So, even if we wanted to create a narrative, its validity will always be called into question because we are not privy to the all facts and those involved in many transactions can claim to have had no legal responsibility or rely on loop-holes in badly written legislation.

We've created a political-economic wonderworld for the spin-doctors.

While this basic corruption of legislative and ethical principals continue, wee episodes of mis-dealing will continue to pile up into bigger issues as time passes. Nothing will have been learnt or lessons applied to remedy situations. Pity really but I bet its profitable for some individuals and syndicates. And profit is all that matters.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

The big losers are the 10 investors who stepped in to support the bank. It is hard to know what pressures they were under to do this deal. If it is true that the regulator knew of the deal in advance then it is quite possible that the investment was done out of a sense of duty or loyalty to the Irish market. Even if the shares had held steady or increased slightly paying interest on €300m is no joke. It is hard to imagine people going into that deal willingly while shares were on a downward trajectoty. It is no wonder the bank had to offer such generous terms to get them on board at all.

I think we can discount any sense of loyalty. Would you jump in to buy bank shares out of a sense of loyalty to the Irish market? Not a chance! I would love to know exactly why they did! Calling in favours? Future promises? Was this part of a wider orchestrated move perhaps involving some in government? Unfortunately all we can do is surmise, but hopefully people keep digging so we can get to the bottom of this. Unfortunately in these situations the innocent are also often tarred. We do need to get to the bottom of this. It is a millstone that is dragging the local market down and people totally unconnected will lose they jobs and savings because of these' cute strokes'.

Unfortunately, the law always has been and likely always will be a toy of the rich. It is said that justice is open to all, just like the Ritz Hotel...

Your points about the EU / Euro legal structures are very interesting rockyracoon. I remember Sandys, a French poster here writing about that a bit and it was all new to me.

Here is our old thread on the Bank Guarantee: if we could see this coming, why couldn't the Government's advisors ?

Nationalisation Watch

To add to your list of sentences -
On the night of the Guarantee, a 4 billion, phony, "bed and breakfast" loan from another Irish bank was lodged in Anglo Irish to boost its apparent worth.
After the Guarantee, the terms of a number of loans were changed in favour of the debtors - replacing assets with paper as collateral etc.

Increasingly economists are saying that a national default might occur in part as a direct result of the Banks Guarantee and Anglo Irish nationalisation which has lumbered us with unreckonnable, vast and in many cases unrecoverable debts.

The fiscal disaster created by this Government means that we are in very poor position to pay them back.

I wish this would all go away, and we could steer our house back into order over a few years, but there seems to be little chance of that.

cactus flower wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Minister Lenihan said in the Dail that the bill was in preparation far a number of months as they feared nationalisation could become necessary.

What happened to change their minds ?

The legislation was in preparation so they would be ready. It is not apparent that there was any earlier decision to nationalise. Nobody has alleged that there was such a decision either. MK said that some thought it would be let go to the wall. BL says there was a discussion and a decision but ultimately none of the Government advisers came down on the side of letting Anglo go bust.

What changed their minds from when they went to nationalise Anglo instead of recapitalising it was that they moved form considering its loan book to analysing the integrity of the institution (my words and interpretation). The Dept flagged a number of issues including the IL&P loan. The Government then decided that recapitalisation would not be worth it as it would not be effective and nationalised instead. It is not apparent whether the shareholding of the 10 individuals or their ability to repay such loans was a factor in such decision.

cactus flower wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I don't see how the 10 individuals are being bailed out?

The problem with their loans is that the rumour as I heard on Radio 1 last night is that the loans were non-recourse loans, i.e., the most the bank could recover from the individuals was the shares. This differs from your normal mortgage where the bank will take your house ans still be able to chase you for the debt for the rest of your life.

Accordingly, the individuals did not require the Nationalisation to bail them out as they had no exposure beyond the shares. If the nationalisation gives anything to them for the shares then this will go directly to Anglo towards repaying the loans, i.e. it makes no difference to the individuals.

Also, as far as I can make out it was the Regulator and not Cowen who accepted the initial representation from Anglo's advisor's that the arrangement was legal.

Also, the p.ie financial analysis is a cod (or a red herring depending on your taste in fish). It appears that the share transaction was directly between shareholders. Accordingly, it should not have skewed the rest of the market so as to show up as support. Normal transactions and share prices should not have been affected relative to the other banks. The real effect of the transaction was to avoid a massive drop in Anglo relative to the other banks by flooding the market with shares which were the subject of contracts-for-difference.

The operation of contracts-for-difference to avoid tax and probably other charges was fatal and that it was legal is a scandal of regulation.

Would you be able to confirm that it was broken down into amounts just below the level at which it had by law to have been sold on the open market? Some transactions are now under investigation precisely because they were made "under the table" in the way you describe.

The rest of your post confirms that the effect of the arrangement was to articificially and deceptively boost the share price above the level it would otherwise have had. So the bank loaned REAL money to these individuals (presumed to be shareholders) who then bought shares in a rapidly declining market in order to maintain the share price. There was no guarantee that the money would ever be paid back, and it appears that it won't. The REAL money was presumably borrowed by the Bank from a third party, will be paid back by us. We will be paying for their reckless, hopeless and possibly illicit attempt to maintain the value of their shares.

(emphasis on real, as there is so much paper junk about)

I agree with what you say. My point was that this support would not have shored up Anglo's share price to make it perform stronger than the other banks. I am open to correction.

I have no insider knowledge on this - only what I heard on the radio. They said it was broken down into 10 shareholdings of 1%. Apparently shareholdings of 3% have to be disclosed. That makes it apparent that they were not broken down into figures 'just below' the threshold. The division would seem to have been made to break the shares into small enough chunks to get buyers for them. It is no surprise that there wasn't anybody around who wanted to buy 3% of Anglo at the time.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ahern-gobetween-for-bank-money-men-1549295.html

From 22 Nov 2008

Quote :

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has emerged as a go-between as part of talks to assemble a multi-billion rescue of the Irish banking sector.

Mr Ahern recently contacted the Department of Finance to try to arrange a meeting with Minister Brian Lenihan on behalf of a potential investor in the banks, sources confirmed to the Irish Independent.

...

There is strong speculation he is working with a foreign group, which has been weighing up putting money in an Irish bank.

The request for a meeting with Mr Lenihan was turned down and Mr Ahern denies playing any role whatsoever. But the Irish Independent understands from reliable sources that Mr Ahern made the contacts in the recent past.

I got the link from P.ie

I think Enda Kenny made reference to it today in Dail.

That all post-dated the guarantee and is unconnected with 10 Investors.

What point was Enda trying to make when he referenced it?

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

That all post-dated the guarantee and is unconnected with 10 Investors.

What point was Enda trying to make when he referenced it?

I'm not sure.
Either it was just mudslinging, or he is suggesting that an Iar-Taoiseach is linked with Golden Circle.

Lads and ladies, I'm not well up on this financial stuff.
So I've a stupid question to ask.
What did the golden circle of 10 do that was wrong or immoral?

I can see that the management of Anglo were wrong to ask investors to shore up the bank's price, and to take shares in itself as collateral. But what did the investors do wrong?