Liquidator appointed to Sean Quinn Group holding company
A liquidator has been appointed to the former holding company behind the Quinn group of businesses previously owned by the five adult children of businessman Seán Quinn.
Quinn Group (ROI) Ltd was wound up last month by the share receiver, Kieran Wallace of KPMG, appointed to the company by the former Anglo Irish Bank, which is owed €2.88 billion by Mr Quinn and his family.
A spokesman for Quinn Group described the liquidation as a move to “tidy things up”. A new holding company, Quinn Group Holdco, has been set up to take control of the group and its ultimate beneficial owners are the syndicate of banks and financial investors which were owed €1.3 billion by the Quinn Group and Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, the new name for Anglo.
The lenders to the Quinn Group and IBRC seized control of the Quinn Group from the Quinn family on April 14th, 2011. Mr Quinn’s five adult children and his wife have issued legal proceedings over the appointment of the share receiver to Quinn Group (ROI) and claim that €2.34 billion of the loans provided by the former Anglo Irish Bank are invalid as they were advanced to prop up the bank’s share price.
In a statement, Mr Quinn’s four daughters – Colette, Ciara, Aoife and Brenda – said they were “truly shocked and outraged” at the liquidation. They described it as a “calculated and sinister plan to ensure we will not be in a position to regain control of our businesses”.
“The actions are horrific in circumstances where the very legality of the takeover of our companies is currently awaiting determination before the High Court,” they said.
Quinn Group (ROI) was the ultimate holding company of 95 firms which comprise the Quinn Group which was involved in a diverse range of businesses, from the manufacture of cement and concrete products, glass and radiators and plastics, to insurance, hotels, property and financial services.
The Quinn Group spokesman said this company was no longer connected to Quinn Manufacturing Group Holdco, the firm behind Mr Quinn’s former manufacturing businesses, which was restructured on December 2nd, 2011.
Mr Quinn was declared bankrupt in Dublin in January after IBRC secured a judgment of €2.16 billion against him on personal guarantees he had given on loans advanced by Anglo to Quinn Finance, one of the main companies in the Quinn Group.
The Quinn Group spokesman said its former holding company in Northern Ireland, which is also called Quinn Group Ltd and was previously owned by the Quinn family, has also been wound up as a members’ voluntary liquidation.
A statement posted on the Quinn Group’s website yesterday said Quinn Group (ROI) Ltd and Quinn Group Ltd were shell companies with no commercial activity.
“A number of other shell companies with no trading activity are expected to go through the same process in the coming months,” the statement said. “This has no impact whatever on our trading manufacturing companies.”
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Brazilian worker survives 6ft bar through his skull
This tomography scan shows the skull of Eduardo Leite pierced by a metal bar in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday last.
A 24-year-old construction worker in Brazil survived after a 6ft metal bar fell from above and pierced his head, doctors said.
Luiz Alexandre Essinger, chief of staff of Rio de Janeiro’s Miguel Couto Hospital, said doctors successfully withdrew the iron bar from Eduardo Leite’s skull during a five-hour surgery.
“He was taken to the operating room, his skull was opened, they examined the brain and the surgeon decided to pull the metal bar out from the front in the same direction it entered the brain,” Mr Essinger said.
He said Mr Leite was conscious when he arrived at the hospital and told him what had happened. He said Mr Leite was lucid and showed no negative consequences after the operation.
“Today, he continues well, with few complaints for a five-hour-long surgery,” Mr Essinger said. “He says he feels little pain.”
The bar fell from the fifth floor of a building under construction, went through Mr Leite’s hard hat, entered the back of his skull and exited between his eyes, Mr Essinger said, adding that “it really was a miracle” that Mr Leite survived. The accident and surgery took place on Wednesday.
“They told me he was laying down (in the ambulance) with the bar pointing upwards”, said Mr Leite’s wife, Lilian Regina da Silva Costa. “He was holding it and his face covered in blood. His look was as if nothing had happened. When he arrived he told the doctors he wasn’t feeling anything, no pain, nothing. It’s unbelievable.”
Ruy Monteiro, the hospital’s head of neurosurgery, told the Globo TV network that Mr Leite escaped by just a few centimetres from losing one eye and becoming paralysed on the left side of his body.
He said the bar entered a “non-eloquent” area of the brain , an area that does not have a specific, major known function.
Mr Leite is expected to remain in hospital for at least two weeks.
Ireland’s house prices undervalued by as much as 5%
SAYS THE ‘ECONOMIST’ MAGAZINE
Irish residential property prices are undervalued, according to the latest edition of The Economist magazine, published today.
During the boom the influential London-based publication repeatedly warned that Irish house prices were overvalued and at risk of crashing.
In the latest of its regular surveys of house prices internationally it said that Irish prices are 5 per cent lower than they should be.
The estimate is based on the long-run relationship between house prices on the one hand and incomes and rents on the other.
Of the 21 countries covered in the index, prices are undervalued in only six other countries, said The Economist.
Irish prices have fallen further than those in any of the other 20 countries, when measured against both 2007 and 2011.
While average Irish prices have halved over the past five years, the next worst performing market was the US, where prices fell by more than one-quarter.
Spain was in third place, with prices down by slightly less than one-quarter over five years.
This follows predictions that more mortgage holders are set to go into arrears, according to a report by Davy Stockbrokers.
The Davy research, published yesterday, predicts that mortgage arrears among owner-occupiers in Ireland could peak at 16.5 per cent, from 13.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
The report also raises concerns about arrears on buy-to-let mortgages, which Davy projects running at more than twice the rate of the owner-occupier category.
The Central Bank plans to publish details of arrears on buy-to-let mortgages for the first time.
These will appear alongside regularly published arrears figures on owner-occupier mortgages in the next set of figures on the performance of mortgages in the third quarter of this year.
The figures are due in November.
The bank also plans to provide more detailed information about the number of mortgages that were restructured to help borrowers meet repayments but that have fallen into arrears again.
These details will be in the arrears figures for the fourth quarter of this year, which will be published in February 2013.
The additional information is an attempt by the Central Bank to provide greater understanding about the state of the Irish mortgage books and to show whether the forbearance measures taken by the banks on distressed cases – under their mortgage arrears resolution strategies – are resolving distressed loans cases and leading to a slowdown in the increasing rate of arrears.
In an analysis of the mortgage arrears situation, the Davy report said banks needed to move beyond short-term measures.
“Restructured mortgages have had limited success in restoring loan performance, with interest-only and principal payment modifications prevalent.
“A remarkable feature of the Irish housing market bust is the lack of principal write-downs and repossessions,” the report said.
Irish banking mortgage losses will exceed the €9 billion assumed in the worst-case scenario used in last year’s stress test, according to the Dublin-based securities firm.
“Eventual losses of €10 billion to €11.5 billion could be absorbed within the remaining €8.5 billion of unused capital from deleveraging requirements,” Davy said in a note.
“Tactical delinquency, increased bankruptcy, further property price falls and macroeconomic developments pose risks to this view.”
Legal rights group Flac said the Davy report was a “stark indicator” of the need to ensure lenders were more realistic and reasonable in their proposals around mortgage debt for Irish consumers.
James Reilly signs new deal to deepen co-operation with China
who want to have more collaboration and exchange of information
Minister for Health Dr James Reilly: China’s top pharma firms interested in exploring opportunities in Ireland.
MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has signed a deal to deepen co-operation with China on healthcare education during an official visit.
Dr Reilly, who is on a week-long trip to China, said the country’s top pharmaceuticals company had expressed an interest in exploring opportunities in Ireland.
“There is a great willingness on both sides for more collaboration and exchange of information and exchange of personnel,” the Minister said in Beijing yesterday.
Dr Reilly signed an expanded memorandum of understanding on education and training with his Chinese counterpart, Chen Zhu.
“Minister Zhu was very interested in training more GPs and we set up a working group to bring that forward. We moved things on in a very real way,” Dr Reilly said.
He said there was also interest in training nurses, and Maura Pidgeon, chief executive of An Bord Altranais, was travelling with the delegation.
Health reform is a big issue in China, which has a population of 1.34 billion. The country has a high savings ratio because people need to put money aside for healthcare in the absence of a working state healthcare system. Rising incomes have seen the major causes of death shift from infectious diseases to lifestyle illnesses such as hypertension and obesity, requiring more preventive care.
Hospitals and doctors are financially dependent on medicine sales, and there are occasional riots in hospitals and attacks on doctors due to over-prescription or perceived inequality. It is an area ripe for reform and the government is prepared to invest in the sector.
Dr Reilly met Sinopharm, the biggest pharmaceuticals firm in China and fourth-biggest in the world, which is interested in research and development in Ireland. “Sino-pharm expressed great interest in coming to Ireland and looking for suitable partners,” he said.
He also held talks with Yin Li, commissioner of the State Food and Drug Administration, following which the Irish Medical Board was invited back to China in December for a conference.
The Minister delivered a keynote address to the China Health Forum in Beijing, which this year focuses on healthcare reform.
“Despite the fact that we face serious economic challenges and have had to cut 15 per cent of our health budget over the last few years, we have managed through reform to reduce the number of patients waiting for both inpatient and emergency services,” he told the audience.
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