Friday, September 25, 2009

The Plot Gets Thicker....

If you take a look at the following two recent news articles published in Ireland it appears that things are getting even uglier for the Oran Group of Company to the point that the Bank who loaned them the money to buy the Waterfront Mall is in serious trouble as well... also see http://www.timbanks.ca/2009/08/hair-brain-idea-or-money-scam.html
Revenue moves to liquidate Oran Group companies
20 September 2009
By Ian Kehoe
The Post.ie Sunday Business News
The Revenue Commissioners www.revenue.ie/en/index.html have moved to liquidate two companies connected to the Oran Group, the property development business owned by Irish developer Richard Fitzgerald, in an effort to recover unpaid taxes. Petitions to wind up the two companies - Oran Properties and MDZ - were lodged in the High Court in recent days, and will be heard by the court next month. The Cork businessman, who has significant property interests in Ireland and Britain, controls both companies through a vehicle called Goldcairn Investments. Both companies based in the headquarters of the Oran Group on Grand Parade in Cork city. Fitzgerald was also a founding shareholder of the property firm Brendan Investments. The move by Revenue comes just weeks after Anglo Irish Bank, the nationalised lender, appointed receivers to two companies connected to Fitzgerald - Richard Finbarr’s Property Co, a property trading company, and the Waterfront Mall shopping centre in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Oran bought the mall in 2006 and subsequently announced plans for a major development on the site. Anglo’s security includes the Oran Group’s offices on Grand Parade, an apartment in the Castletroy area of Limerick, and shares in Wharfside Regeneration (Devon) Ltd. Fitzgerald has a number of other business interests. In May 2008, he sold his Scottish recycling firm to the Cork based Response Group in a deal that is reported to have valued the firm at more than €10 million.
State faces new Anglo cash call
20 September 2009
By David Clerkin, Markets Correspondent
The Post.ie Sunday Business News
The government will have to inject several billion euro in fresh capital into Anglo Irish Bank, following write-offs at the bank after its loans are transferred to Nama. Banking sources believe that Anglo will need a minimum of an additional €4 billion in fresh state capital to continue to operate once the loans are transferred and say this could rise to€6 billion or more due to further write-downs likely on loans not transferred to Nama. The government will seek ways to stagger the significant extra costs on the exchequer which it will incur in keeping Anglo operational. Senior sources say that closing the bank would incur a bigger cost by triggering the state guarantee on bank bonds and deposits. Figures provided by the Department of Finance last week revealed that Anglo would transfer loans with a book value of €28 billion to the National Asset Management Agency( Nama). The transfer is expected to involve a discount of between 33 per cent and 38 per cent on its book value, higher than the average of 30 per cent across all participating institutions announced by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan last week. This could trigger losses on the loan portfolio of between €9 billion and €10.5 billion. These losses, coupled with further impairments on Anglo loans that will not be transferred to Nama, look set to erode Anglo’s capital base to such an extent that the government would be forced into a series of fresh capital injections. The government spent €3.8 billion earlier this year to repair Anglo’s balance sheet, based on reported loan losses of €4.9 billion and anticipated future losses of a further €2.6 billion. When the fresh capital injections likely to be needed over the next year are added to state funds already gone in, it looks set to push the total cost of bailing out the now nationalised bank to between €8 billion and €10 billion. The need to inject more funds into Anglo would place further strains on the exchequer’s finances, as the government, acting through the National Treasury Management Agency, would need to borrow the money, with little prospect of ever getting a return on it. The Department of Finance is likely to explore ways in which any payments necessary can be minimised and staggered, deferring the need for some of the capital requirement for a limited period. It also remains unclear what capital requirement the Central Bank will impose on Anglo.Among the mechanisms that will be examined are Anglo recognising further loan impairments over more than one accounting period. Unusually among Irish banks, Anglo’s financial yearend is September 30. This may give its board limited flexibility in determining the level of losses to be recognised in the current year, and in the subsequent period.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

While in Ireland this summer I could see the Irish were excited to hear that Both RBC and CIBC from CANADA were interested in taking over their Anglo bank...They spoke highly of Canadian banking Standards.....BUT..The Canadians told them they had to bury this debt and some others where money freely went out the door to investments that were shaky at best and to stop the excessive compensation of bank executives for banks that were failing and on the brink of folding