Rise and fall of a Tiger tycoon - IT 17/07/10

[jacobmarley]

At the height of the boom the property developer Paddy Kelly was worth €350 million. Now he’s €350 million in debt. Yet he still drives a BMW, lives in ‘a lovely house’, and admires Anglo Irish Bank. He spends a day with FINTAN O’TOOLE

irishtimes.com/newspaper/wee … 80645.html

[everybody_knows]

Whats the problem ? Its all good . Anglo is great , Seanie just bent the truth a little and don’t we have wonderful developments . The thinly disguised corruption and the ripping down of Georgian Dublin is ok aswell . All he is short of is a horse and a stetson .

[Madness_of_Crowds]

I was just about to post a link to this. Two lovely quotes:

He went to see the doyen of the mass builders, Matt Gallagher. “He had uncontrollable hiccups. I remember saying when I’m his age I don’t want that. One of things I said to him at the end of it was, I asked him why did he only build estates of semi-detached houses. He said: ‘Well, I started building them and I kept going.’ There was no philosophy behind it.”

“We still have a stake in that development. It was very successful. At the end of Belfield if we’d stopped, we’d be very wealthy.” When I ask him why he didn’t stop, he asks: “Why do fish swim? Why do birds fly?”

cognitive dissonance, anyone?

[Calina]

So wait, I’ve more of a net worth than Paddy Kelly. Why don’t I get a profile in the Irish Times?

Oh wait wait wait. I’d have to spend a day with Fintan O’Toole.

[yelims]

"I married a woman of independent means?’ ”

FFS

[onestepbehind]

“I suppose people think I’m having a tough time, but I’m not. I’ve never had a tough time in my life.”

No Paddy we all knew you’d be fine, but it’s sure glad to hear it from the horses mouth.

[janmc]

“We,” he says, meaning the property developers, “were just jockeys.” The banks always owned the horses, and everything else was “an illusion. There was no real wealth made.

I found this the most interesting part of the article and it’s true to some extent. But he’s still living in a house on Morehampton Road with his wife’s credit card & cash at his disposal - I’m guessing a lot of her ‘independent’ wealth was accumulated from his along the way?

[who_shot_the_tiger]

@janmc

“We,” he says, meaning the property developers, “were just jockeys.” The banks always owned the horses, and everything else was “an illusion. There was no real wealth made.

I found this the most interesting part of the article and it’s true to some extent. But he’s still living in a house on Morehampton Road with his wife’s credit card & cash at his disposal - I’m guessing a lot of her ‘independent’ wealth was accumulated from his along the way?

You guess wrong… She is the daughter of Joe Donohue who founded and sold Novum to Fitzwilliam Securities for nearly IR£30 million years ago - and the house is rented.

[What_Goes_Up]

@who_shot_the_tiger

You guess wrong… She is the daughter of Joe Donohue who founded and sold Novum to Fitzwilliam Securities for nearly IR£30 million years ago - and the house is rented.

I bet she thinks she married well!

…He went broke in the last slump, in 1987,… “I’m 66, so what do I care if they make me bankrupt?” …

[onestepbehind]

@who_shot_the_tiger

@janmc

“We,” he says, meaning the property developers, “were just jockeys.” The banks always owned the horses, and everything else was “an illusion. There was no real wealth made.

I found this the most interesting part of the article and it’s true to some extent. But he’s still living in a house on Morehampton Road with his wife’s credit card & cash at his disposal - I’m guessing a lot of her ‘independent’ wealth was accumulated from his along the way?
You guess wrong… She is the daughter of Joe Donohue who founded and sold Novum to Fitzwilliam Securities for nearly IR£30 million years ago - and the house is rented.

So that makes her a woman of “independant” wealth?

[McContrarian]

@who_shot_the_tiger

You guess wrong… She is the daughter of Joe Donohue who founded and sold Novum to Fitzwilliam Securities for nearly IR£30 million years ago - and the house is rented.

I hope your mom, I mean I hope his wife didn’t invest in any of those “ingenious” business ventures that either the father or son came up.

[Codify]

Grrr…

: ‘There was no better team than Anglo Irish. I will defend them to the end’

ANGLO IRISH BANK funded Smithfield, and Kelly maintains it would not have been done without them. Before we left Clonskeagh we followed his trail up Beech Hill Road and into the low, modernist complex that is the headquarters of the Smurfit group. In 2003 Kelly and his partners bought the four-acre site for €25 million.

What is interesting about the deal, though, is that Kelly again took the money from Anglo Irish, even though much better terms were on offer. Why did he stick with Anglo?

“We always felt there was some element of ‘thank you’. Because we had grown together. We could have laid it off with Bank of Ireland, AIB. They were dying to do the business. But it’s my nature to be loyal.” With them, “the game was ongoing.** If you had a big problem, they’d say: ‘Stick it to one side and deal with it later, but get back in the game**.’ ”

He even bought shares in Anglo, although he sold them when they worth €17.30 each because “I knew myself at the time it made no sense”. Nevertheless, he insists: “I’ve never known one person at Anglo who wasn’t a decent person.”

What, I ask, about Seán FitzPatrick and the numerous ways in which shareholders were misled about the real state of the bank?

“It wasn’t so much a defrauding as a misrepresentation. It went on in Ireland, because we all moved money around balance sheets. And auditors signed off on it. Sean was wrong but he was also right. He was wrong in that regard, but where he was right was that until we lost our way in the last five or six years, there was no better team than Anglo Irish. I will defend them to the end.”

[Open_Window]

There are two type of caliber in this world and so far I’d be happy to see either kind at this stage.

[who_shot_the_tiger]

@McContrarian

@who_shot_the_tiger

You guess wrong… She is the daughter of Joe Donohue who founded and sold Novum to Fitzwilliam Securities for nearly IR£30 million years ago - and the house is rented.

I hope your mom, I mean I hope his wife didn’t invest in any of those “ingenious” business ventures that either the father or son came up.

Don’t be a complete prick. I’m not her son.

[xman]

It wasn’t so much a defrauding as a misrepresentation. It went on in Ireland, because we all moved money around balance sheets. And auditors signed off on it. Sean was wrong but he was also right. He was wrong in that regard, but where he was right was that until we lost our way in the last five or six years

What a crock of shit Paddy.

[janmc]

@who_shot_the_tiger

You guess wrong… She is the daughter of Joe Donohue who founded and sold Novum to Fitzwilliam Securities for nearly IR£30 million years ago - and the house is rented.

Ah, I stand corrected. That’s interesting. Makes the original quote more apt.

[grumpy]

Paddy Kelly wasn’t a tiger tycoon.

A foolish debt monkey who managed to fail at everything he touched in business outside property.

Nothing heroic about a charismatic charmer able to borrow money. The heroic part is paying it back.

[verbatim]

@jacobmarley

At the height of the boom the property developer Paddy Kelly was worth €350 million. Now he’s €350 million in debt. Yet he still drives a BMW, lives in ‘a lovely house’, and admires Anglo Irish Bank. He spends a day with FINTAN O’TOOLE

irishtimes.com/newspaper/wee … 80645.html

Luxury car seized at home of developer Paddy Kelly

irishtimes.com/newspaper/fro … 11046.html

EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY and SUZANNE LYNCH

ACC BANK has seized a BMW saloon car from the Donnybrook home of developer Paddy Kelly.

Bailiffs acting on foot of a warrant to the Dublin city Sheriff’s Office took the seven-year-old 7 Series yesterday.

The car was featured in an article in The Irish Times last month when Mr Kelly spent a day with Irish Times assistant editor Fintan O’Toole travelling to developments around Dublin and its environs.

Mr Kelly, who owes various banks €350 million, was unapologetic in the article about the extent of his debts.

Two weeks ago he appeared at the MacGill summer school in Co Donegal, where he once again seemed apparently untroubled by his borrowings and drank champagne conspicuously while joking about the car and his lifestyle.

Mr Kelly said yesterday that the car, which was seized without warning when Mr Kelly was not in the house, belonged to his wife, and had been taken unlawfully.

“I don’t know if it was for show or . . . trying to embarrass us or whatever. We are going to take legal advice on this.”

[popout_list]

Searched cbg.ie and found a 2003 7 series BMW saloon second hand for €12,950.

cbg.ie/Car_Detail.aspx?ID=3875101

Not sure what kind of a dent that’ll make in a €350m debt. Not that I’m against seizing his assets, just that this seems more for show than anything.

[buddygunz]

Indeed the car is worth very little. I’m surprised he kept the same one since 2003. For the sort of moneyt his guy was supposed to be worth you could say it was quite modest.