Story carried by Irish Central, 12th January 2010
Blue Horseshoe
Very likely true.
or to put it another way … 6 of the 10 richest men in Ireland have completely broke Ireland.
Here’s the ST list:
203 (224) Sir Michael Smurfit and family £294m Down £104m Packaging, Property
207= (206=) Stephen Vernon £280m Down £140m Property
243= (199=) Ray O’Rourke and family £230m Down £200m Construction
297= (438=) The Murphy family £190m Same - Construction
438= (522) Neil Taylor and family £120m Down £33m Computer games, Property
501= (558=) Martin Birrane £109m Down £35m Motor racing, Property
510= (616=) Frank Burke and family £105m Down £20m Property
648= (784=) Bill McCabe £87m Down £13m Property
778= (488) Peter Sutherland £74m Down £95m Finance
793= (784=) Dr Peter Fitzgerald and family £70m Down £30m Pharmaceuticals
linky
No Big Mc on that… Nor Carroll, Quinn, Dunne, Kelly, etc…
We are also missing the following ‘billionaires’ who should be on that list and who certainly would be worth more than €200m each no matter how encumbered they may find themselves.
Tony O Reilly
Denis Desmond
Pallonji Mistry
John Dorrance
and 
Seán Quinn, a well known Billionaire
Also the likes of Enya and U2. Should Denis O’Brien count?
ED TO ADD:
Here’s a few of 'em:
Rank
177 Sean Quinn & family Ireland age 60 4.5b Ireland
349 John Dorrance III Ireland 63 2.6b Ireland
557 Dermot Desmond Ireland 57 1.8b Ireland
583 Anthony O’Reilly Ireland 70 1.7b Ireland
No “Swiss Tony” Quinlan either.
Stuart Pearson no?
Don’t you just love the “glee” in these articles!
For starters 6 out of 10 of the really wealthy are not broke… and I exclude O’Reilly from that list.
The likes of Bernard McNamara or Paddy Kelly never had real wealth… and I include almost all of the top property developers in that statement. They just had big borrowings- an illusion of wealth, supplied by their kindly bankers who were perpetrating a credit fueled Ponzi scheme on their shareholders and ultimately the taxpayer. At least 8 out of 10 of these top developers are insolvent and most likely ultimately - all of them. I keep repeating myself here - there is no bailout for them. Nor should there be (that’s Darwinian capitalism)- go down to the courts if you don’t believe it!
I believe many of these lads have salted many many millions away in obscure networks of nominee-controlled discretionary trust and company vehicles located in offshore tax havens such as Jersey. For a rainy day. And unlike the Ansbacher debacle, this time it’s locked down good and tight.
I think they remain absolutely loaded. They must have pissed themselves laughing if they heard RTE’s David Murphy opine today that the banks probably won’t pursue them for their trophy homes and personal guarantees “because it’s not worth it” .
That is the belief of many who have never owned a business… and I don’t know whether you have or not- so the comment is not directed at you.
A partner in a leading law practice once told me that people get into business too quickly and don’t get out quickly enough (when things go wrong). The statement is true… most owners keep dripping up their homes or whatever else they can borrow on in the forlorn belief that they will be able to turn a hopelessly loss making enterprise around, when they should have cut their losses and put the grippers in.
Those that have money stashed away are fairly obvious (you don’t have to be a genius to name them), however many have not - and I would put the two that you mention in the latter category. That they will try to use their contacts and expertise to try and rise from the ashes in a new “skin” is highly likely if they have any ambition left and if they can salvage anything from the wreckage.
Paddy Kelly has already started on that course in Canada, but then he admitted his circumstances before most others were prepared to. His track record of success and failure is out there for most to see and as grumpy rightly states the record of failure is obvious. Was he wealthy?.. No. Did the banks lend him huge money and did he spend it and live like he was wealthy?.. Yes. There is a difference.
Will he make it in Toronto?.. Who knows. But looking at his track record, I know which way I’d bet.
w_s_t_t, those would be the two that you mentioned.
But on this, I tend to agree with you. The established corporate titans of Ireland, Desdemond and, eh, there must be some others? will be well insulated from a single point of failure. But the developers, where that is all they did, are finished. Assuming, as you say, they will be foreclosed on.
And, at this stage, I think they will be, as it will mean that the layer of leveraged insider investors can be bailed out without being wiped out. I know think that there is a chance that NAMA will pay back. Why? Because the bar will be set so low… it’s in good part about the ‘other’ loans, specifically loans for equity either in quoted shares or in mezzanine finance.
So my N tells me, anyway!
Off the scale. Probably.
I was listening to The Last Word on Barry O’Callaghans troubles at Riverdeep and I remembered this article from The Sunday Times
May 7, 2006
Young guns
There is a new urbane breed of deal maker emerging in Ireland. Joe Brennan and Ciaran Hancock report on the hotshot entrepreneurs who fly high but keep their cool
business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b … 713993.ece
I’m how some of these young guns are doing now
Anglo Irish sues Niall McFadden for €15m in loans
businessandleadership.com/ma … m-in-loans
Slattery’s JetBird in danger of crash landing
tribune.ie/business/news/art … etbird-in/
Irish investors may lose out on EMPG changes
rte.ie/business/2010/0113/empg.html
Head down to Shrewsbury or Ailesbury Rd. Might make you think again
As a friend of mine once reminded me… “turnover does not equal profit!”. Similarly, “owning” a big house does not mean wealth. If there is a mortgage on it… believe me- the bank owns it, you don’t. Especially if the loan exceeds the value. I despair that this needs to be spelled out.
Do some research. Go down to the Registry of Deeds, pull the file on say Paddy Kelly’s house. See what mortgage is on it and then tell me if there is any equity left in it. (No, I’m not going to do it for you - I already know the answer). Repeat the process for Bernard McNamara’s house on Aylesbury Road … and then comment.
By the way, PK no longer lives in the house - the Chinese do.
If Paddy Kelly hosts the Chinese Embassy I bet Bernard will host the Korean Embassy in fairly short order while Sean Dunne will probably let his to the Yemenis or Haitians 
Who lives in it? Who ‘enjoys’ it? Who pays for it?
there was no Irish rich list on the TV this year as there used to be.
You seem to have a lot of friends telling you this sort of thing. You’re entitled to your opinion of course bu I’ll stick to mine till I see a Sunday World front page depicting Mc Namara’s digs in a “Clare campsite” no admirer of O’Dowd by the way
Those that live in it presumably enjoy it, but not if there is a large debt overhanging it, which they are committed to paying. That’s “fool’s gold” YM. An asset can very quickly become a liability if it is highly leveraged.