Quinn Insurance in Administration

[mylestheslasher]

Should we burn him at the stake? and his wife too for being married to him? Is he ten times worse than the many Property Developers who owe the banks millions through NAMA but have all their millions in their wives names?

I am still of the opinion, that yes, he completely fucked up, massively, but if given the time to address it, the Quinn Group would have got themselves out of the mess they got themselves in to.

That opportunity was taken away from them much too quickly for the liking of hundreds of people in the border region of Fermanagh / Cavan / Leitrim etc...

Not much point going on about the what ifs and buts etc, whats done is done now and the quicker they get Q2 up and running the better imo

Is he any worse than Johnny Ronan and the boys? No. Is he any better? No.


The man made a killing in construction related businesses during the biggest property boom the world has ever seen, and lost his shirt and half the wardrobe of the nation when he dabbled in financials. I'm sorry but there is no way I'd be investing in a man like that to make a second fortune.

And while his loyalty to the border counties has of course ensured loyalty from locals in return, you'll excuse the rest of us for not being overly enamoured with the prospect of paying fortunes in extra taxes just to fill in holes that are all the bigger because of the absence of whole companies that were swapped in exchange for a laptop.

A load of bollox. Quinn was making money and jobs long before any boom. He put money in families pockets when useless c***ts in Dublin wouldn't even fix a pothole for us (when he took over the kilmore he had to tar the road to Cavan himself). Now Ireland is full of perfect people like loan shark that must have created loads of jobs (1000's) and never made an error. The same boys that paint every fallen business man as the villain. The reason Quinn owes the tax payer is because the Irish government gave a blanket guaranty to banks. Who saved all the insurance jobs in cork when bupa left - the man who knows nothing about insurance, that's who. If anyone could have got this money back it was Quinn but the powers that be didn't want to know and now they get nothing.

[Lone Shark]

Quinn was making money and jobs long before any boom. He put money in families pockets when useless c***ts in Dublin wouldn't even fix a pothole for us (when he took over the kilmore he had to tar the road to Cavan himself). 

Fine. We get it. Border people think he's a saint. He looked after the border. It's all about the border. How about the insurance levy is only placed on people from the border then? Or a targeted property tax on people from the border areas? That seems like a fair compromise?

Now Ireland is full of perfect people like loan shark that must have created loads of jobs (1000's) and never made an error. The same boys that paint every fallen business man as the villain. 

Play the ball, not the man. And I don't think of every fallen business man as the villain, I'm self employed and well aware of how hard it is to make ends meet out there. I don't blame him for failing - I blame him for looting the place on the way out at our expense. That's the point here, which all ye defenders of him keep skipping over, instead creating the straw man argument about picking on a man while he's down. 

The reason Quinn owes the tax payer is because the Irish government gave a blanket guaranty to banks. 

As we've said a thousand times, of course he's not as bad as the Fianna Fáil guys who allowed all this to happen, and who I would happily spit on if they were walking down the street. That's not the point. We are saying Quinn is a thief and a looter. Pointing out that Bertie and the Brians left the door open and invited everyone in to loot the state doesn't make him any less so.

The reason Quinn owes the tax payer is because the Irish government gave a blanket guaranty to banks. Who saved all the insurance jobs in cork when bupa left - the man who knows nothing about insurance, that's who. If anyone could have got this money back it was Quinn but the powers that be didn't want to know and now they get nothing.

The jobs weren't saved and aren't saved. Quinn merely gave them the illusion of being saved but in actual fact it was a stay of execution, underwritten by his fundamental lack of understanding of the insurance market. I don't know the first thing about Quinn Glass or Quinn Cement, but I do know the insurance market very well and his company was trading recklessly from the start. I will grant you I don't put this one down to malevolence, merely incompetence - however it hardly fills me with confidence that he should be given a second chance at our collective expense.

[supersarsfields]

Should we burn him at the stake? and his wife too for being married to him? Is he ten times worse than the many Property Developers who owe the banks millions through NAMA but have all their millions in their wives names?

I am still of the opinion, that yes, he completely fucked up, massively, but if given the time to address it, the Quinn Group would have got themselves out of the mess they got themselves in to.

That opportunity was taken away from them much too quickly for the liking of hundreds of people in the border region of Fermanagh / Cavan / Leitrim etc...

Not much point going on about the what ifs and buts etc, whats done is done now and the quicker they get Q2 up and running the better imo

Is he any worse than Johnny Ronan and the boys? No. Is he any better? No.


The man made a killing in construction related businesses during the biggest property boom the world has ever seen, and lost his shirt and half the wardrobe of the nation when he dabbled in financials. I'm sorry but there is no way I'd be investing in a man like that to make a second fortune.

And while his loyalty to the border counties has of course ensured loyalty from locals in return, you'll excuse the rest of us for not being overly enamoured with the prospect of paying fortunes in extra taxes just to fill in holes that are all the bigger because of the absence of whole companies that were swapped in exchange for a laptop.

He was far from being just a property developer. He had glass, hotels, packaging, renewable energies, casios to name a few. So trying to paint him as a developer that got lucky is nonsense.
He was hardly without success in the insurance side either. He developed a system in settling claims  that left QIL with the lowest cost per claim figures in the Market. A system most other insurers are implementating now in varying degrees.

[seafoid]

Quinn might have been very flaithiulach with money in the border area when he had it but he socialised all his losses.
And that is not on. 

[armaghniac]

Quinn and Lenihan have a lot in common in that they were both taken in by Anglo. However, they are both at fault. Lenihan could have made a limited guarantee that would have kept the ATMs functioning. Quinn could have invested in Anglo but only to the extent that if he lost out that he would not be putting the economic sucess of the Cavan/Fermanagh area (that he did so much to build) at risk. He was too greedy and bet the lot.

[sammymaguire]

Are you from Dublin Lone Shark? Should the banks have been bailed out Lone Shark?

Are any of the Heads of the Banks in Ireland been held accountable by anyone for all their wreckless and crazy lending? If Quinn Group, not the man himself weren't experts in Insurance... A business that was amazingly profitable, then what were the experts at Finance doing over the last ten years? And those in power?? All sipping champagne at the races basking in the sunshine thinking this would simply never end?

And how would you judge these people in comparison to SQ? They all fucked up and left Mr and Mrs Joe Soap and their kids and grand kids clean up the mess afterwards cos their eye went completely off the ball.

[supersarsfields]

Quinn might have been very flaithiulach with money in the border area when he had it but he socialised all his losses.
And that is not on.

what people seem to be missing here is that Quinns fight is with Anglo. They can rightly have huge issues with the advise and legality of the loans issued. Therefore just because the state decided to take on Anglo's losses doesn't mean the Quinns should have to walk away if they rightfully feel Anglo acted unjustly. Would you walk away from the amounts talked about if you felt you had a case? Would anyone?
 

[Lone Shark]

He was far from being just a property developer. He had glass, hotels, packaging, renewable energies, casios to name a few. So trying to paint him as a developer that got lucky is nonsense.
He was hardly without success in the insurance side either. He developed a system in settling claims  that left QIL with the lowest cost per claim figures in the Market. A system most other insurers are implementating now in varying degrees.

That there is more to him I don't doubt, and of course the man obviously had plenty of expertise or he wouldn't have got where he did. However I would say that the hotel, Casino, Glass and Cement businesses were highly based around the boom. I don't know enough about the packaging and renewable sides to say if they've been a success or otherwise. My point is that he's not a surefire bet to succeed second time around.

Just because he may have done some things right in the insurance business doesn't mean he knew what he was doing though. His car insurance business was built around playing it like Ryanair, screwing people who don't dot the i's and cross the t's perfectly. In the health sector he was quoting utterly unsustainable premium prices that were always going to be a problem as soon as your client base got older. If it didn't fail last year or this, it would have done in the next decade because it simply wasn't calculated correctly. Any of the actuarial community will tell you that. (I did that course in college and remain in contact with many people who are very well connected in that sector. I was warned that it was a matter of when QI failed rather than if from the very start - they didn't have a clue in there).

Are you from Dublin Lone Shark? Should the banks have been bailed out Lone Shark?

Are any of the Heads of the Banks in Ireland been held accountable by anyone for all their wreckless and crazy lending? If Quinn Group, not the man himself weren't experts in Insurance... A business that was amazingly profitable, then what were the experts at Finance doing over the last ten years? And those in power?? All sipping champagne at the races basking in the sunshine thinking this would simply never end?

And how would you judge these people in comparison to SQ? They all fucked up and left Mr and Mrs Joe Soap and their kids and grand kids clean up the mess afterwards cos their eye went completely off the ball.

I am not from Dublin, and my view of the banks is that the state should have stuck to the old deposit limits, enforced them,  and looked the ECB in the eye and ensured that protection came in for AIB and BOI. Anglo and Irish Nationwide should have been let go to the wall, and when the run kicked in, the ECB would have stepped in. If they wanted to protect bondholders, that's up to them.

Can we please stop with the straw man argument about how others have got away with greater harm? That's neither here nor there. Of course Bertie Ahern should be hanging from a gallows, the banking sector should be in jail and the developers should all be living side by side in a ghost estate in Roscommon, living off a meagre wage until they die of frostbite in one of the shanty towns they created. It's a huge injustice that none of these things have happened.

None of this makes it okay that Seán Quinn looted his companies. That is the point here. Seán Quinn is a thief and a dishonourable man. That he has plenty of company does not change this. Stop comparing him to others. It's not about comparison.

[Lone Shark]

Quinn might have been very flaithiulach with money in the border area when he had it but he socialised all his losses.
And that is not on.

what people seem to be missing here is that Quinns fight is with Anglo. They can rightly have huge issues with the advise and legality of the loans issued. Therefore just because the state decided to take on Anglo's losses doesn't mean the Quinns should have to walk away if they rightfully feel Anglo acted unjustly. Would you walk away from the amounts talked about if you felt you had a case? Would anyone?

Firstly, he didn't have to bet the whole farm. Quinn defenders seem to be arguing here that on the one hand he should be let keep loads of ill gotten gains because he'll rise again and bring a new age of prosperity to greater Belturbet, but that on the other hand the poor diddums was too clueless to realise what he was doing when he had the biggest bet ever struck in the history of mankind.

Secondly, of course he should be allowed contest it in the courts. If he did that, and the courts found in his favour and he discharged whatever debts he had left, then he's free to do whatever he wants with his remaining assets. However as ye all well know, that's not what he's doing. He's shoved all his money away to the family, then claiming that he has nothing and that it doesn't matter a schyte if the courts find in Anglo's favour.

[supersarsfields]

He transfered assets to prevent Anglo taking them over before the Quinn court cases are heard next year. He was protecting himself from Anglo grasping further assests that he doesn't believe they have a say over due to conditions of the loans. It was self preservation surely, and after all the actions Anglo have taken he is well within his rights to do so.
Why do you maintain that Anglo should be given control of these assets when Their ownership is being challanged? Surely ownership should stay with the Quinns until the cases are heard? Hopefully that is what will happen now. 

[CiKe]

Quinn might have been very flaithiulach with money in the border area when he had it but he socialised all his losses.
And that is not on.

what people seem to be missing here is that Quinns fight is with Anglo. They can rightly have huge issues with the advise and legality of the loans issued. Therefore just because the state decided to take on Anglo's losses doesn't mean the Quinns should have to walk away if they rightfully feel Anglo acted unjustly. Would you walk away from the amounts talked about if you felt you had a case? Would anyone?

Who advised Quinn over the CFD's? Are you suggesting he took legal advise from Anglo? Would he not have employed his own legal team in negotiations? I wouldn't think it takes a rocket science to figure that something is not quite right if the banks share price is going down the tubes and they lend you money to support it. Even if his advisors did not say something, it doesn't say much for his own judgement.

[Lone Shark]

He transfered assets to prevent Anglo taking them over before the Quinn court cases are heard next year. He was protecting himself from Anglo grasping further assests that he doesn't believe they have a say over due to conditions of the loans. It was self preservation surely, and after all the actions Anglo have taken he is well within his rights to do so.
Why do you maintain that Anglo should be given control of these assets when Their ownership is being challanged? Surely ownership should stay with the Quinns until the cases are heard? Hopefully that is what will happen now.

So in other words, the assets will be transferred back if he loses the case in the courts and he's found to be in the wrong?

I'll tell you what, if Seán Quinn comes out and makes a statement to that effect, I'll believe he's actually an honourable man. Until then he remains a thief and a looter. I won't hold my breath if you don't mind.

[supersarsfields]

The problem seems to be that Anglo didn't give SQ legal advise when Entering into the loans at all which is part of the reason they are contesting them as Anglo would have been legally bound to provide.
No doubt that this is when SQ made a huge mistake, chasing a falling share price, the issue is that it was based on advise and funds by Anglo which has gone on to cost him his company, while they attempted to prop their share price.   But at this stage he believed Anglo were still on his side, which it became very clear they weren't.

[mylestheslasher]

I expect loneshark if your business was in bother you would still keep all your assets in your name, including the family home, just in case the banks needed to sell them to get back what you owed. I think you would be wise to stop calling Quinn a thief and looter too.

[supersarsfields]

He transfered assets to prevent Anglo taking them over before the Quinn court cases are heard next year. He was protecting himself from Anglo grasping further assests that he doesn't believe they have a say over due to conditions of the loans. It was self preservation surely, and after all the actions Anglo have taken he is well within his rights to do so.
Why do you maintain that Anglo should be given control of these assets when Their ownership is being challanged? Surely ownership should stay with the Quinns until the cases are heard? Hopefully that is what will happen now.

So in other words, the assets will be transferred back if he loses the case in the courts and he's found to be in the wrong?

I'll tell you what, if Seán Quinn comes out and makes a statement to that effect, I'll believe he's actually an honourable man. Until then he remains a thief and a looter. I won't hold my breath if you don't mind.

I don't think he'll have a say if they lose the cases.

I wouldn't be holding my breath either. I wouldn't think he would value your opinion enough to make a statement on anything.