Golden Circle Named

Capt'n Midnight

jprender wrote:

On the face of it, I don't think this golden shower did much wrong. They were offered a super deal and they jumped at it. It was business to members of the Golden Circle, nothing more. If they pay the 25% that they had risked, I don't see a problem with what they have done.

AFAIK share support schemes like this are illegal in the UK and US. Many countries have laws that allow prosecution of their citizens for crimes against their laws even if commited abroad.

If any of the golden circle are non-residents for Irish tax purposes then we should check to see if they broke the laws where they are resident and if they are liable to prosecution there.

mike65

RTE are avoiding naming as well, Add Today FM to that.

The broadcast meeeja are clearly scared of a visit to the high courts.

darc

Gee, wow. Everyone is up in arms about a group of poeple that did a side deal to keep the value of their private bank up. - This is a MINOR story.

Anglo was a bank that operated for a group of approx. 100 customers. These probably represented abut 80% of their business. - They are in fact still profitable and the potential losses mentioned in the gutter press will never come about.

The scandal which seeems to be forgotten is how all banks were allowed to operate the way the did and why did so many people get into so much debt without checking out the reality of things.

Everyone has to take blame for the current situation and everyone needs to pay to clean the mess up. -

Why did people fork out 700k for a 3 bed semi in south Dublin.

Why did people threathen to move their banking elsewhere if they did not get an over the top mortgage?

Why did so many people put in their mortage application that they were renting out a room - knowing that this was false.

Why did Irish "investors" create such a bubble in house prices in Poland & Latvia & Bulgaria and in the process cause problems for locals?

In reality it was Joe Public who went and bid the prices higher, Joe Banker who gave him the money & Joe Builder who willingly took the money. - All to blame - all to pay.


So instead of looking for who to blame for spilt milk, we should be implementing strict prodedures & regulations immediately so that people who can buy houses, can do so, & healthy business can obtain funding for expansion.

mike65

Well duh!

Nodin

jprender wrote: »

These guys got 30mill worth of shares and were only exposed to 25% of this if things went t1ts up. Right or wrong, I know I would have taken that gamble.
On the face of it, I don't think this golden shower did much wrong. They were offered a super deal and they jumped at it. It was business to members of the Golden Circle, nothing more. If they pay the 25% that they had risked, I don't see a problem with what they have done.

The problem is that Anglo financed the buy of its own shares. It told the Government that it had found investors, but neglected to mention that it was the one giving them the money to invest. The reason theres so much interest in the names is in case they're linked to Fianna Fail. The ones looking very (allegedly) fvken guilty are the few in Anglo who organised this.

nice_guy80

I always knew that those tax breaks for PRIVATE hospitals were designed to allow profiteering for people close to Fianna Fail and the PDs

and also explains why Harney is so insistant on them being built - despite the fact that it will push up private healthcare costs

NewDubliner

Rod & Reel wrote: »

NB what good would this do. They would still only be liable for 25% of the loan value. That is what they signed on the dotted line to do.

What kind of loan can you get where you're only liable to pay back 25%? This sounds more like a share option scheme.

Rod & Reel wrote: »

If the government was to go ahead and try and get the full amount back from the 10 this could create a massive dominoe affect around the country.

You mean that a debt is not a debt? That people who owe money don't have to pay it back? Tell that to the taxpayers. Tell that to ordinary 'Bronze Circle' business people whose loans are being foreclosed.

The message to business and to international observers would be very valuable: that we don't tolerate bad business practices. If the privilege of limited liability is being abused, we need to change it.

As to the workers you suggest are effectively held hostage by the investors, if the businesses are viable they should be allowed to continue, but the profits should go to the taxpayer who now owns the debt.

P. Breathnach

darc wrote: »

Gee, wow. Everyone is up in arms about a group of poeple that did a side deal to keep the value of their private bank up. - This is a MINOR story...

I almost agree. It's a relatively minor story. In normal times, it would be a huge scandal.

People are being deflected from the bigger problems by focusing on relatively smaller ones. But I don't believe the people should escape speeding fines on the grounds that there is an unsolved murder somewhere -- nor do I think the speeding fine should be splashed on the front pages of the newspapers.

ionix5891

dave-higgz wrote: »

3) Why are only 4 of the names leaked and not the 10. I always thought 10 was too even a number to have. Maybe there's only 4??

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59125510&postcount=105


on another note im not surprised Libertas is connected

the donators to them need to be named and shamed as well

i cant believe how corrupt this country is

I M Wright

GREAT ARTICLE!

thebman wrote: »

One of the first things I noticed too.

If they get away with this, I'll be so fooking mad I may kill one of the fookers.





first two from this link, article entitled:
Property boom fuels €7bn turnover for Top 50
http://businesspro.ie/pressreleases/press_2006_02.htm


http://www.independent.ie/national-news/builder-moving-into-hospitality-1341281.html



http://www.independent.ie/national-news/developers-who-won-the-contracts-993535.html


http://www.tribune.ie/archive/article/2007/sep/30/what-happens-when-our-healthcare-becomes-dependent/

Just some quick quotes from google searches for these peoples names with the appropriate links to the sites I got the quotes from. I think these people would have got on fine without average Joe public bailing them out TBH but hey I'm not friends with them, maybe there is something I don't know about them.

thebigcheese22

nice_guy80 wrote: »

I always knew that those tax breaks for PRIVATE hospitals were designed to allow profiteering for people close to Fianna Fail and the PDs

and also explains why Harney is so insistant on them being built - despite the fact that it will push up private healthcare costs

Well I hate Harney as much as most people, but she probably insisted on them being built coz its part of her warped idealogy.

She left Fianna Fail because of its corruption, I just don't think she'd engage in the same kind of bull****.

Don't get me wrong, she is incompetent and idealogical-driven but I dont think she's corrupt.

Could be wrong tho...

yoshytoshy

Some people are saying this is ok ,I don't understand ?

The bank has falsely generated business ,it has decieved it's own creditors.
This is the very thing that drove house prices up and got us in this mess in the first place.

D.S.

jprender wrote: »

On the face of it, I don't think this golden shower did much wrong. They were offered a super deal and they jumped at it. It was business to members of the Golden Circle, nothing more. If they pay the 25% that they had risked, I don't see a problem with what they have done.

IMO it is the powers at Anglo who came up with that scheme that need to be punished.
The financial regulators who just let it happen need to be punished.
The Govt who bailed out this bank and have now exposed the taxpayer to huge losses need to be punished.


And who do you think is being punished at the mo? The real "heroes", ordinary joes like you and me.

+ 1 here..I am sorry but on the face of it, if all these guys did was take a speculative investment because Anglo came calling, then this was common practice during the boom. These guys were offered super deals. It appears that Anglo behaved dispicably, the regulator was asleep, and the Government had inadequate controls to ensure the regulator was doing his job.

NewDubliner wrote: »

The reason the 'investors' risk exposure is so low was the use of nominee companies. Given that the whole transaction was artificial and highly questionable in terms of the Companies Act. I think that any limitation on liability afforded to the investors by the Companies Act should be set aside and these 'investors' be made personally liable for full amount they guaranteed.

Again I am not sure about this, there doesn't appear to be any clear evidence that there was intent to perform an illegal act on behalf of the Golden 10??

jprender wrote: »

Did these guys do anything illegal ? If so, then definitely they should pay in spades and I retract my earlier statement.

Bingo, + 1. There is no clear evidence they did.

They should be absolutely liable for any loans to Anglo. Regardless of whether there is viable collateral with the bank, the bank should still pursue these outstanding debts to the full.

However, that been said, does anyone else not notice that alot of the reporting seems to be trying to incriminate these 10 guys purely because:

1) we don't know who they are (and we seem to want the Government to spill the beans regardless of any client confidentiality rights they have)
2) they are extremely wealthy and everyone Irish will begrudge anyone with a few pound.

We have not one concrete report that any of these 10 are refusing to pay back their outstanding debt?? So therefore, where is the illegality? What was the exact illegality of the original investments on behalf of the investors??

Perhaps, more dirty laundery will come out in the next few weeks that we are not currently aware of now. However, I am sick to death of 1) the unbelievably sensationalist, inaccurate, witch-hunt reporting which the Irish media continues to get away with and 2) the general public attitude that we MUST have someone to blame for this mess.

This cause of this mess is EVERYONE's fault. If Anglo hadn't existed as a bank, we'd still be bailing out the other institutions, we'd still have ridiculous exchequer borrowing. Absolutely, Anglo is a shambles. A joke institution that has embarassed the nation, and killed our Credit Rating internationally. But they are a sideshow. We are so hellbent on blaming these guys for everything we are ignoring we are in a serious mess. This nation (and we were warned) were overburdened with personal loans, credit card debt, mortgages, and hire purchase finance. We accepted high prices and we went on a property binge both home and away. No bank manager but a gun to any punter's head and forced him/her to take out all this credit. We accepted and tolerated a lazy Government who wasted 10 years of a boom. Voter turnouts were abysmal and so inadequate change and investment never came. Our Government fueled a property boom through incenives like mortgage relief and stamp duty relief. Developers and banks followed by maximising business and profit in this area and in turn our economy became over reliant on one sector. We had no diversification, no where else to go when things went bad.

Sorry for the rant, but Anglo and the Golden 10 are a sideshow. Lenihan and Cowen (presuming they don't get ousted) need to focus on cutting public sector spending, increasing credit flows, bringing stability and regulation to the banking sector, diversifying the economy in the long term, bringing new foreign direct investment, getting exchequer borrowing back in line.

There's a lot to be done. And the media/public are focusing their energy, and in turn the government's attention, on a blame game. We risking taking the Government's eye off the ball. We should be screaming bloody murder for quicker reform in banking, health, public sector spending, long term capital investment, education etc etc. We should be marching against the 100,000 public sector workers because at the end of the day, the government need to make the hard choices..

But no, we just wanna talk about a couple of v rich investors who may or may not have done anything wrong.

mike65

The Golden Circle are of interest cos of who they are, who they know and what they represent. They do have questions to answer - about colluding with a Bank to boost its market valuation.

yoshytoshy

If I'm to work for the next twenty years or so ,I want to know exactly were my money is going.

It's not fair that a handful of people with such short lives ,get a countries wealth through deals like this.

D.S.

mike65 wrote: »

The Golden Circle are of interest cos of who they are, who they know and what they represent.

Not unless they have done anything wrong and we have concrete evidence. They are not public representatives. They have a right to privacy unless there is evidence to suggest they've done something wrong.

mike65 wrote: »

They do have questions to answer - about colluding with a Bank to boost its market valuation.

Absolutely, they may have questions to answer. All we know right now is that they have had dealings with Anglo. Definitely they should be expected to deal with all investigations. My point simply is the reporting and public attitude is prejudging the situation. We have no facts, just insinuations.

yoshytoshy wrote: »

It's not fair that a handful of people with such short lives ,get a countries wealth through deals like this.

I don't really understand this comment. There is no evidence that the Golden 10 got anything from the country, or that they are refusing to pay back their debts???

yoshytoshy

D.S. wrote: »

I don't really understand this comment. There is no evidence that the Golden 10 got anything from the country, or that they are refusing to pay back their debts???

Thats not the issue I'm talking about ,this deal is one of many that has been going on for years.

When we see our economy doing well the last ten years ,some of it was driven by deals like this.
Projects got the go ahead on the strenght of bank and v rich friendship.
This is why we are one of the worst affected countries now and not because of young couples looking to start a life together.

dhorgan3

Where do you teach DS? Or am I wrong in thinking you like to correct people:pac:

Ronan|Raven

Useless bit of information #128 A certain current Taoiseach opened a hotel owned by Gannon in this persons town a few years back.

D.S.

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Thats not the issue I'm talking about ,this deal is one of many that has been going on for years.

When we see our economy doing well the last ten years ,some of it was driven by deals like this.
Projects got the go ahead on the strenght of bank and v rich friendship.
This is why we are one of the worst affected countries now and not because of young couples looking to start a life together.

We're not the worst affected. Everyone is in the doghouse - Iceland, England, Germany, U.S. to name but a few in serious trouble.

Deal will always be driven by friendship. You won't do a deal for millions of euro with someone you don't know or trust. What do you expect? Banks always forge relationships with successful people? That's actually something banks do well and should continue you to do well.

The problem is that Banks took too much risk. Anglo has c*cked up rightly with the Golden 10 because the collateral was the shares themself, rather than property, or bonds etc.

Just becuase you are a young couple looking to start a life together, doesn't make you a sound reason to get a loan. Banks messed up here too, giving people of all ages too much credit on property which was overvalued and liable to fall in value in the future.

Serious reform is needed with regards to lending practices and risk management.

Good banking relationships though, I'd argue, are fundamental to successful banking.

D.S.

dhorgan3 wrote: »

Where do you teach DS? Or am I wrong in thinking you like to correct people:pac:

Lol, I don't. But there's a lot of mis-reporting going around. And we have a huge thread on the Golden 10, and other threads on incompetence, and general unsatisfaction, but v little in the Politics forum around reform initiatives needed.

P.S. didn't think I was correcting anyone per se, rather debating the issue. Maybe you don't like it because it contrasts with your own stance??:pac:

population

D.S. wrote: »

Good banking relationships though, I'd argue, are fundamental to successful banking.

Yeah but what we have seen goes beyond "good relationships". Essentially we have seen an irresponsible like minded cabal ruining the worlds economy.

yoshytoshy

D.S. wrote: »

Banks messed up here too, giving people of all ages too much credit on property which was overvalued and liable to fall in value in the future.

Serious reform is needed with regards to lending practices and risk management.

Good banking relationships though, I'd argue, are fundamental to successful banking.

Agreed about reform ,my point about young couples is ,you can't blame "everyone" for this mess. Theres a hell of a lot of innocent people caught up in this.

There was never any studies of infrastructure or proper planning done ,with regards to these loans for projects. And absolutely no thought given to the future of the economy.
A circus at best.

I M Wright

Anyone out there now of any connection between David Drumm, former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank and Mr Tommy Drumm Group Operations Director for McInerney Homes and Contracting Ltd in Ireland and UK, with McInerney Holdings plc???

How deep does this really go???

D.S.

population wrote: »

Yeah but what we have seen goes beyond "good relationships". Essentially we have seen an irresponsible like minded cabal ruining the worlds economy.

I agree alright that certain powerful relationships have been detrimental. But is that something you can really ever prevent? I mean, people will always seek to do business with people you know. You will always try and involve your family and friends in a business deal etc etc. Business comes down to trust basically. It's a necessary element. It's regulating that element that's important. However, I am not sure at this point what we should/could change in that dynamic other than stipulating that adequate and strict levels of collateral should be secured against all deals involving banks/corporations?

D.S.

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Agreed about reform ,my point about young couples is ,you can't blame "everyone" for this mess. Theres a hell of a lot of innocent people caught up in this.

There was never any studies of infrastructure or proper planning done ,with regards to these loans for projects. And absolutely no thought given to the future of the economy.
A circus at best.

Agreed wholeheartedly with above. It's a circus. No forward planning, no strict rules and independent monitoring of deals. An inadequate political system. A poorly monitored banking system.

turgon

Realistically, its not like they are going to be punished, unlike the 90 guys put in prison for failing to pay their TV license. You couldn't make it up.

miju

has anyone else heard who the FF TD is supposed to be?? From what I've been hearing it'll make for some interesting times when his name comes out

Seems Enda wasn't far off the mark with his comments during the week in the Dail afterall

Takeshi_Kovacs

turgon wrote: »

Realistically, its not like they are going to be punished, unlike the 90 guys put in prison for failing to pay their TV license. You couldn't make it up.

WTF..!! we imprison people for not paying their tv license, this country is bolloxed... and i dont blame people for not paying it either considering the stagnant ****e they screen nowadays with celebrity this and celebrity that, and dumbass talent shows.

Kind of annoying because i know a fella who had a couple grand of stainless steel stolen from him recently. The thief was brought to court and found guilty, and was given a sentence of, 40 hours community service..

Capt'n Midnight

back on Mar 22, 1997
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19970322/ai_n14095199

The Serious Fraud Office gained an unprecedented victory yesterday, securing custodial sentences in the court of appeal for a pair of convicted fraudsters who two years ago had escaped with "too lenient" fines and community service for their part in an illegal share support conspiracy.
...
In addition to the jail sentences, Ward and Howarth were each banned from becoming company directors for seven and five years respectively. Giving the decision, Lord Justice McCowan said, "We grant leave as we consider the sentences imposed were unduly lenient. "The scheme was masterminded by Ward. The companies involved were international companies trading on the London Stock Exchange. The fraud involved careful planning and substantial dishonesty. An important element in sentencing must be the deterrent element. "It is important that people carrying out something like this should know they face a real chance of going to prison."