Quinn Insurance in Administration

Started by An Gaeilgoir, March 30, 2010, 12:15:49 PM

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orangeman

Quote from: Orangemac on April 30, 2011, 12:34:01 AM
Sean Quinn seems to be in complete denial about the situation.

If the administrators are only there since last March how can losses from 2009 be their fault?

Also why are accounts for 2009 and 2010 only coming out now?

The insurance business deteriorating seems to be linked to the losses which became apparent in 2008.

It is understandable people are loyal to Sean Quinn but a combination of greed, arrogance and lack of regulation have brought the situation to this point.

Quinn Group should have followed the path of Kerry Group and floated the company and went for steady growth year on year instead of shooting for the stars.
[/b]

good advice.


But like a lot of sad stories, easy to say this after the event, but a good point nonetheless.

supersarsfields

Quinn family to seek damages from Anglo for losing business
Related
Anglo may recover less than half of €2.8bn owed by Quinn, says Dukes | 30/04/2011
Taoiseach rejects workers' calls for reinstatement of Seán Quinn | 30/04/2011
In this section »
Growth in economy for 2011 cut by half in latest forecast
Royal marriage sealed with two kisses to crowd's approval
CIARÁN HANCOCK and SIMON CARSWELL

THE FAMILY of Seán Quinn are preparing to take legal action against Anglo Irish Bank seeking damages relating to events over the past two years that led to them losing control of the Quinn group of businesses earlier this month.

It is understood Mr Quinn's children are planning to issue High Court proceedings in the coming days. The children – Seán jnr, Brenda, Aoife, Colette and Ciara - are equal shareholders in Quinn Group (ROI), the parent company for the various manufacturing, financial services and leisure businesses that were owned by the family but are now set to be taken over by Anglo and the lenders to the group.

As such, any action has to be taken in their names. All of the Quinn children with the exception of Ciara work in businesses in the group.

The bank appointed a receiver over the company's shares in Quinn Group (ROI) earlier this month, taking control of the business with banks and bondholders, who are owed €1.28 billion by the group.

Mr Quinn is not involved in the action directly as he was not a shareholder in the business when it ran into difficulty with Anglo and the Financial Regulator. The family would not comment yesterday.

The action is expected to be taken in the Commercial Court in Dublin, which fast-tracks legal actions involving major business disputes.

The case is to look at the validity of Anglo's decision to lend the family €2.3 billion to buy shares in the bank, which is owned by the State. The family owe Anglo €2.88 billion.

The action will also focus on the legality of the share charges dating back to 2008, which have been used by Anglo's new management team to effectively take control of the Quinn business empire. The bank was given a charge over the ownership of the group to cover losses on Mr Quinn's investment in Anglo arising from the bank's collapsing share price during the financial crisis of 2008.

Further legal proceedings under consideration by the family include a possible challenge to the validity of the regulator's decision in March 2010 to seek the appointment of joint administrators to Quinn Insurance Ltd (QIL). It is not clear if the Quinn children will also take an action against the Financial Regulator-Central Bank, but this is being considered by the family's legal team.

The family may seek to injunct the sale of QIL to Liberty Mutual and Anglo, which was signed on Thursday. Mr Quinn has previously warned the family would not be able to repay Anglo without the insurer.

supersarsfields

Quote from: Cosmo Kramer on April 29, 2011, 11:18:38 PM
Quote from: Lone Shark on April 29, 2011, 01:47:53 PM
Quote from: Bogball XV on April 28, 2011, 09:29:36 PM
Quote from: hsthompson on April 28, 2011, 03:02:03 PM
I only have a vague grasp of what's been going on with this fiasco. Would someone give me a brief enough synopsis of what has happened Quinn's empire and what is next for the man himself. I heard this debt is personal debt, surely he won't have to sell the house and everything and end up in a council estate in Enniskillen on the dole?
The rumour was that all the kids got €50M a few years ago - hopefully it was cash and not shares in the group?

????

Why would that be hopefully? Why should we be cheering on the looting of an insolvent company where all the holes have to be plugged by those who had nothing to do with it?

Exactly, hopefully it was shares in the group. Why should the taxpayer pay for them to have lifelong wealth?

They won't take his house off him regardless of what happens so no chance of him ending up in a council estate.

Out of interest, do the Quinn supporters here realise that he has no support whatsoever outside the border areas? Because of this their protests are unlikely to gain any sympathy from those in control of the situation.

there's every chance he could lose the house. At the minute he's been told he has it for 5 years then their taking it of him. The only way that won't happen is if Anglo agree a settlement with him.
Of course the Quinn supporters know that the majority of the support is from the border area. Hardly suprising considering that's the area that will be affected by the changes.

muppet

Quote from: supersarsfields on April 30, 2011, 08:23:59 AM
Quinn family to seek damages from Anglo for losing business
Related
Anglo may recover less than half of €2.8bn owed by Quinn, says Dukes | 30/04/2011
Taoiseach rejects workers' calls for reinstatement of Seán Quinn | 30/04/2011
In this section »
Growth in economy for 2011 cut by half in latest forecast
Royal marriage sealed with two kisses to crowd's approval
CIARÁN HANCOCK and SIMON CARSWELL

THE FAMILY of Seán Quinn are preparing to take legal action against Anglo Irish Bank seeking damages relating to events over the past two years that led to them losing control of the Quinn group of businesses earlier this month.

It is understood Mr Quinn's children are planning to issue High Court proceedings in the coming days. The children – Seán jnr, Brenda, Aoife, Colette and Ciara - are equal shareholders in Quinn Group (ROI), the parent company for the various manufacturing, financial services and leisure businesses that were owned by the family but are now set to be taken over by Anglo and the lenders to the group.

As such, any action has to be taken in their names. All of the Quinn children with the exception of Ciara work in businesses in the group.

The bank appointed a receiver over the company's shares in Quinn Group (ROI) earlier this month, taking control of the business with banks and bondholders, who are owed €1.28 billion by the group.

Mr Quinn is not involved in the action directly as he was not a shareholder in the business when it ran into difficulty with Anglo and the Financial Regulator. The family would not comment yesterday.

The action is expected to be taken in the Commercial Court in Dublin, which fast-tracks legal actions involving major business disputes.

The case is to look at the validity of Anglo's decision to lend the family €2.3 billion to buy shares in the bank, which is owned by the State. The family owe Anglo €2.88 billion.

The action will also focus on the legality of the share charges dating back to 2008, which have been used by Anglo's new management team to effectively take control of the Quinn business empire. The bank was given a charge over the ownership of the group to cover losses on Mr Quinn's investment in Anglo arising from the bank's collapsing share price during the financial crisis of 2008.

Further legal proceedings under consideration by the family include a possible challenge to the validity of the regulator's decision in March 2010 to seek the appointment of joint administrators to Quinn Insurance Ltd (QIL). It is not clear if the Quinn children will also take an action against the Financial Regulator-Central Bank, but this is being considered by the family's legal team.

The family may seek to injunct the sale of QIL to Liberty Mutual and Anglo, which was signed on Thursday. Mr Quinn has previously warned the family would not be able to repay Anglo without the insurer.


If the Quinns win on those grounds (didn't Mansfield try something similar?) the country will collapse immediately, therefore it won't happen.
MWWSI 2017

unitedireland

#694
The Irish Times - Monday, May 2, 2011Insurance fund used to grease wheels of Quinn restructuring
John McManus
Business Editor

NOTHING THAT has surfaced over the last year has done anything to undermine the case for calling time on Seán Quinn’s buccaneering stewardship of Quinn Insurance. The opposite, really.

But that is not the same thing as saying that what happened subsequently was perfect and the outcome that emerged last Thursday was the optimal one.

Anything that results in a claim of €700 million on the Insurance Compensation Fund is a disaster, even in a country more used to counting the costs of its financial failures in billions rather than millions. It’s even more of a disaster when the administrators running the company were telling the High Court last October that no such claim would be made.

Several questions remain unanswered. One is whether the blame for the need to claim now on the fund can be laid directly and entirely at the feet of Seán Quinn. His risk-taking may have put the company on the road to perdition, but did the actions of the administrators once they took over exacerbate things? Quinn himself has queried their provisioning policy. Further light may be shed on this when the company’s full 2009 accounts are published.

Quinn has also raised the issue of whether the claim on the fund arises in part as a result of the horse-trading that took place in order to secure a wider restructuring of Quinn Group, which owes €2.3 billion to Anglo Irish Bank and €1.3 billion to various other banks and bond holders. He was ousted in the process.

Bear in mind here that a levy on other insurance companies – which will be passed on to their customers – does not constitute State aid in the narrow sense.

What is clear is that the bond holders were the king-makers in the Quinn Group restructuring. They have emerged from the mess without having to take any sort of a write-down on their debts.

They also appear to have got improved security over the other Quinn Group assets, and some cash.

The reason they had the whip hand is that they held guarantees over Quinn Insurance’s subsidiaries and the individual manufacturing business. Unless they were prepared to give up these guarantees, then the Government and Anglo Irish Bank’s complicated plan to take control of the business and break it up would be pretty unworkable. Anglo’s hold over the Quinn Group was far weaker than the bond holders’ as it only held the family’s shares in the ultimate parent as security.

The price of the bond holders’ releasing the guarantees was a €200 million payment, some of which will be recycled back into the group.

About €80 million will be made available to the manufacturing group by the banks as a working capital facility, but the remaining €120 million will be directly into the bank and bond holders’ pockets.

The money came from Quinn Insurance in a bit of intragroup financial engineering that Seán Quinn himself would have been proud of.

But the key point is that the assets of the insurance company are reduced by €200 million to the benefit of the bond holders and thus not available to meet its losses. As a result, the claim on the fund will be €200 million greater than it otherwise needs to be, and the whole thing can be seen as an indirect subsidy by other insurers and policy-holders.

One suspects that when the penny drops in this regard with the other insurance companies, who will be levied to meet the demands on the fund – current value €30 million – there may be some unhappiness.

The planned transaction presumably has the approval of the Financial Regulator, who oversees the fund, and again one has to presume he has taken the wider, long-term view. Anglo is also his problem.

It’s worth noting that nobody is calling it a good deal. “It is the best outcome for the Irish economy,” is all the joint administrators could manage.

They claim the compensation fund could have been hit for €1 billion if no sale had been achieved and the fund would have had to meet all the company’s liabilities.

They were also at pains to point out that the jobs of 1,570 people – and the €100 million plus what the company’s activities are worth to the regions in which it operates – have been safeguarded.

The other “win” for the taxpayer is that the wider deal gives Anglo Irish Bank a direct economic interest in the Quinn Group, owning 75 per cent of the remaining business and 43 per cent of the new insurance business. The income from these assets – and their sale – over time may cover the €2.8 billion that Seán Quinn and his family owe the bank, most of which has been written off.

Like most things involving Ireland and its financial institutions, one is left wishing – to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s adviser James Carville – one could be born again as a bond holder.

SO THE GOVERNMENT HAVE TAKEN MONEY FROM QUINN INSURANCE AND PUT IT IN THE QUINN GROUP THATS WHAT THEY PUT QUINN INSURANCE INTO ADMINSTRATION FOR. WHAT A JOKE

unitedireland

Key Quto "The money came from Quinn Insurance in a bit of intragroup financial engineering that Seán Quinn himself would have been proud of."

supersarsfields

#696
Seán Quinn and his family are preparing legal proceedings over their loss of control of the Quinn Group.

It is understood the action would be against the Financial Regulator and Anglo Irish Bank.
Last month the bank appointed a share receiver to the Quinn Group and Quinn Insurance has been sold to the bank and US group Liberty Mutual.
At the time, Anglo Irish Bank Chief Executive Mike Aynsley said the bank was owed an enormous amount of money by the Quinns, which they were not in a position to repay.
Mr Aynsley said the bank had taken an approach which protected the businesses and paved the way for maximising the repayment of debt to the taxpayer over time.


I gather proceedings were issued on three cases against Anglo.

orangeman

Quote from: supersarsfields on May 17, 2011, 06:12:57 PM
Seán Quinn and his family are preparing legal proceedings over their loss of control of the Quinn Group.

It is understood the action would be against the Financial Regulator and Anglo Irish Bank.
Last month the bank appointed a share receiver to the Quinn Group and Quinn Insurance has been sold to the bank and US group Liberty Mutual.
At the time, Anglo Irish Bank Chief Executive Mike Aynsley said the bank was owed an enormous amount of money by the Quinns, which they were not in a position to repay.
Mr Aynsley said the bank had taken an approach which protected the businesses and paved the way for maximising the repayment of debt to the taxpayer over time.


I gather proceedings were issued on three cases against Anglo.

I suppose they had to do something - doing nothing was not an option.

supersarsfields

From the Irish times.
The wife and five children of businessman Sean Quinn have lodged a High Court action seeking damages against Anglo Irish Bank over alleged negligence, breach of duty and intentional and/or negligent infliction of economic damage.

The damages claim arises from events of the past two years that led to the family losing control of the Quinn group of businesses and is believed to amount to a claim for hundreds of million euro.

In proceedings against Anglo and receiver Kieran Wallace, the family are seeking to overturn the appointment of Mr Wallace by Anglo as receiver over shares held by them in the Quinn Group and various related companies.

They claim that charges made in favour of Anglo from late 2003 up to 2009 over shares held in Quinn Group (ROI) Ltd, Quinn Quarries Ltd, Slieve Russell Hotel Ltd, Quinn Finance Holding, Quinn Group Hotels Ltd and Quinn Group Prperties Ltd are invalid, uneforceable and of no legal effect.

The appointment of Mr Wallace on April 14th last as receiver over those shareholdings on foot of the disputed charges is also invalid and unenforceable, the family claim. They want orders restraining him acting as receiver and setting aside his appointment.

They also want declarations that undated guarantees provided by them to Anglo over the liabilities of several Cyprus-registered companies are invalid and unenforceable. Those companies are Lud Investments Ltd, Moshaid Investments Ltd, Opawa Investments Ltd, Pahu Ltd, Tarate Enterprises Ltd and Morboneto Holdings Ltd, all with registered offices at Capital Centre, Nicosia.

The proceedings by Patricia Quinn and her children - Sean jnr, Brenda, Aoife, Colette and Ciara - were lodged in the High Court this week and it is expected an application will be made within weeks to have the case fast-tracked by the Commercial Court. The family are being represented by Brian O'Moore SC, Bill Shipsey SC and Rossa Fanning BL.

The five children are equal shareholders in Quinn Group (ROI), the parent company for the various manufacturing, financial services and leisure businesses that were owned by the family. All of the children except Ciara work in businesses in the group.

Anglo appointed a receiver over the company's shares in Quinn Group (ROI) last month, taking control of the business with banks and bondholders, who are owed €1.28 billion by the group. The Quinn family owe Anglo €2.88 billion.

Further legal proceedings are under consideration by the family include a possible challenge to the validity of the regulator's decision in March 2010 to seek the appointment of joint administrators to Quinn Insurance Ltd (QIL).

supersarsfields

Couple of things to hit the paper tomorrow with regards to this. Firstly Anglo are to "report" huge losses for Quinn Group for 2010. Be interesting to see where these losses occurred and how much was down to the 30-40m paid to McKillop and the likes.

But in bigger news (but I have no doubt that it will hardly get a mention in the News tomorrow) the first case between Anglo and Quinn was heard in Sweden today. Anglo were trying to bulldoze in on  some foreign properties without the proper paperwork by calling for liquidation of the Quinn companies over there. Anglo were thrown out and control awarded back to Quinn. Not sure of the values of these but you'd be chatting 10's millions anyway.
Anglos ability to drop the ball never fails to astound me. No doubt Anglo will begin to sweat a little now considering the cases lodged by Quinn over here are mostly on the same basis. 

118cmal

In slightly related news, the Cavan Crystal hotel has also gone into receivership.  This will also be announced tomorrow.

sammymaguire

Quote from: 118cmal on May 26, 2011, 10:29:19 PM
In slightly related news, the Cavan Crystal hotel has also gone into receivership.  This will also be announced tomorrow.

How did you get wind of that one mal?
DRIVE THAT BALL ON!!

118cmal

Quote from: sammymaguire on May 26, 2011, 10:41:25 PM
Quote from: 118cmal on May 26, 2011, 10:29:19 PM
In slightly related news, the Cavan Crystal hotel has also gone into receivership.  This will also be announced tomorrow.

How did you get wind of that one mal?

They rang anyone who had booked their wedding there today and told them it was business as usual but that there was going to be this announcement tomorrow.  That's the Russel, Lough Erne and now the Crystal  >:(

sammymaguire

Any good cheap wedding deals going on at the minute then??

Heard that the other day alright, got some friends getting married next year but they were telling me it was all hush hush. I think it's a north Monaghan family who own it. Nice little hotel, lacking the grounds around it though.

Sad news with the way things are going for all these well renowned establishments.
DRIVE THAT BALL ON!!

118cmal

No idea Sammy.  Yeah very sad indeed.  I've been at a few weddings in the Crystal and I couldn't fault them.  As you say there is very little ground around it but the food and service was excellent.