BoI’s Ritchie Boucher talks on dealing with his cancer illness as an executive
‘I have responsibilities, and so if there is an issue then people have to be told’
Bank of Ireland’s Group Chief Executive Richie Boucher. It would be going too far to suggest Richie Boucher was relaxed as we sat down in his Dublin office yesterday.
We met just hours after the bank announced its first six months of profit since the crash – a huge milestone for Boucher who is the most senior Irish banker to remain in situ following the crash – but it comes a day before he is due to undergo surgery for cancer.
The Zimbabwe-born Bank of Ireland boss has a public persona that, for reporters, lends itself nicely to comparison with some of Africa’s less-cuddly wildlife. He comes across as being about as soft and approachable as a rhinocerous.
But in person he is friendly and courteous, even managing to crack a couple of jokes about the treatment he’s due to undergo today.
The decision to go public with the illness, which he expects will keep him out of the office for about a month, surprised many.
“First off, the way I looked at it, these things happen. It is not something to be ashamed of,” he says.
“Secondly my job is very public. I have responsibilities to customers, staff and shareholders so if there is an issue then people probably have to be told.
“When you have responsibilities to a lot of people that degree of transparency is necessary. It doesn’t mean it is something you crave. But you just have to do it and if you are going to do it, try and do it properly.”
News about the cancer treatment was initially circulated to staff at the bank through a memo that quickly made its way into the public domain.
The reaction has been hugely positive, he says.
“I think a lot of people are surprised. It has been quite touching. I’m lucky I have great colleagues in the bank. Right across the bank people are great, very supportive. The board is supportive and the shareholders – I do get to speak to the very big shareholders and they are supportive. These things happen let’s just deal with it.”
Boucher says he’s lucky doctors found the stage one cancerous polyp in his colon during a routine medical check-up. After the surprise diagnosis he jokes that clinics should now be paying him commission, given the new business he’s probably sending their way.
In practical terms, once he was diagnosed he needed to make arrangements to take time off, he says.
And, he notes, in an age where everyone has a camera phone, the chances of keeping anything secret are pretty remote.
Like AIB and Ulster Bank, this year’s return to profit is important for Bank of Ireland though, ironically, the bank’s share price has been in the doldrums lately after soaring last year.
The shares had been going gangbusters until March when the stock hit almost 40 cents a share just before high-profile shareholder Wilbur Ross decided to cash out of a stake he bought back in 2011 at 10 cents a share. Ross has made close to half-a-billion euro on the sale, but Bank of Ireland shares have struggled to recover since.
Was the US investor’s exit a blow?
He’ll be missed, Boucher says, but he insists the turnover of shareholders is part of the normalisation of the bank.
“Mr Ross was a very positive contributor. He was a very professional board member, very diligent in his attendance at the board. He brought great knowledge and he is a great guy.”
The two men are still in contact, he says.
“He (Wilbur Ross) is an activist shareholder. He is always looking for opportunities and we’ve been in touch about a couple of things that he’s been looking at in Ireland.
“As a shareholder, I can’t really comment on his decision, and he made his own comments at the time about that.
“But if I talk about it in general terms there is this phase that banks go through … as you go through restructuring, stabilisation to now the growth phase, your shareholder base tends to change.”
He cites the example of “burned” junior bondholders who were given shares in the bank in 2011 under a so-called debt for equity swap.
“Bondholders have moved out of the market and their shares have gone to other people. So the bondholders evolved.”
“About 70pc of the WL Ross stock was placed with UK institutions who hadn’t been a big feature of our shareholder base back in 2011 and 2012 so it’s a natural evolution,” he insists.
The ideal, he says, is to have A broad-based and diverse shareholder base.
That could be some way off – the bank is 14pc State-owned and with chunky stakes held by the likes of Ross’s former co-investors Fairfax.
Boucher insists the strategy doesn’t change, regardless of the ownership – even with the State.
“We engage with the Government but we engage with the Government more as a big bank in the economy,” he says.
In most cases – more than 80pc he reckons – the bank and Government’s objectives are fully aligned anyway. He doesn’t go into the other 20pc, but is under no illusion that the two are one and the same.
Where they are aligned is in the need for Bank of Ireland to lend into the economy and the need to tackle the mortgage crisis, he says.
The flow of credit and addressing home-owner arrears are major priorities for Government, and equally the best prospect of Bank of Ireland’s long-term profitability, he says.
MEANWHILE:-
Eating spicy chili peppers may burn out colorectal tumors
An August 2014 international medical study finds that the eating of red hot chili peppers may reduce one’s risk from getting colorectal tumors.
The international team of scientists performing this research was headed by American professor of medicine Eyal Raz from the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Diego.
Raz and his team found that capsaicin, an active ingredient in chili peppers, helps to reduce the risk of colorectal tumors in mice, and such results could be likely applied to humans, too.
The capsaicin activates a receptor (called TRPV1) in the cells lining the intestines of mice. This action causes a reaction that eventually helps to reduce risk from colorectal tumors.
In the study, mice prone to developing tumors of the gastrointestinal tract were fed capsaicin. Ultimately, these cancer-prone mice had a reduction in tumors. Further, the treatment extended their lives by about 30 percent.
In the August 1, 2014 ScienceDaily.com article Chili peppers for a healthy gut: Spicy chemical may inhibit gut tumors, it is said that — according to the results from this study — there appears to be a correlation between increased TRPV1 function and reduced colorectal cancer in humans.
The article continues, “… if such proves to be the case, the current study suggests one potential remedy might be spicy capsaicin, which acts as an irritant in mammals, generating a burning sensation in contact with tissue.”
And, “Capsaicin is already broadly used as an analgesic in topical ointments, where its properties as an irritant overwhelm nerves, rendering them unable to report pain for extended periods of time. It’s also the active ingredient in pepper spray.”
Dr. Raz was quoted within the article: “Our data suggest that individuals at high risk of developing recurrent intestinal tumors may benefit from chronic TRPV1 activation. We have provided proof-of-principle.”
The birth control Pill thought to be linked to increased breast cancer risk
A new statistical analysis finds that women under age 50 who were diagnosed with breast cancer were also more likely to have recently been on some versions of the Pill.
The increased cancer risk still translates to less than a 1% chance of developing breast cancer for most younger women, researchers emphasise, so the results should not outweigh the many benefits of taking oral contraceptives.
These results are not enough to change clinical practice or to discourage any women from taking birth control pills, said lead study author Elizabeth F Beaber of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
Some past research suggests that the hormones in birth control pills could “feed” hormone-sensitive tumours and thereby raise younger women’s risk of a breast cancer diagnosis, or of developing more aggressive cancers.
However, birth control pills have evolved over the decades since their introduction and the hormone doses they contain have dropped steadily, so many studies are based on data for formulations that are no longer used, Beaber and her colleagues write in the journal Cancer Research.
To examine the risk in a group of women more recently taking birth control pills, Beaber’s team analysed data from a large healthcare delivery system, tracking birth control pill prescriptions and breast cancer diagnoses.
The researchers compared 1,102 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1990 and 2009 with 21,952 women without cancer who were of similar age.
Women who had taken oral contraception during the past year, according to pharmacy records, were more likely to be in the cancer group than those who had never taken birth control pills or who had taken them more than a year prior.
Contraceptives that contain higher doses of oestrogen or progestin were more strongly associated with increased cancer risk.
“Use of formulations with high dose oestrogen, ethynodiol diacetate [synthetic progestin], and specific triphasic oral contraceptives in the past year was associated with an increased breast cancer risk in our study, while other formulations, including low dose oestrogen oral contraceptives, did not appear to be associated with an elevated risk,” said Beaber.
Overall, the risk was higher for hormone-sensitive cancers than for other types of tumours, but that result was not statistically significant, meaning it could have been due to chance.
German schoolboy drops phone on a fishing trip,
THEN DRAINS ENTIRE POND TO LOOK FOR IT
There are people who definitely are a bit too attached to their smartphone, but this determined German schoolboy is in another league entirely.
A boy enjoying a fishing trip with a group of friends accidentally dropped his iPhone over the side of the boat – so he decided to drain the entire pond.
The 16-year-old took matters into his own hands after the angling club refused to let him use his diving suit to retrieve the device, sneaking back later that night armed with a powerful pump and two hoses.
‘I thought two pumps would drain enough of the water from the pond so I could find my cellphone,’ he told his local paper in Cologne.
‘I knew the phone was probably dead but wanted to get the data card back with the numbers, pictures and videos of my friends.’
The youngster thought that if he directed the water into the angling club toilet he may get away with his plan – but he failed to notice that the toilet wasn’t attached to a sewage system.
When the owner arrived to a flooded car park he quickly found the cause and called police.
The boy was ordered to pay for the damage for the toilet, the clean-up operation and the water to refill the pond.
And though he didn’t recover his phone, he was unapologetic.
On a wing and a prayer there goes the eagle chick as she flies off from her nest
Off she goes.
The sea eagle chick sitting on its perch on Cribby Island near Lough Derg
A WHITE TAILED EAGLE CHICK HAS SUCCESSFULLY FLOWN HER NEST.
The young female bird fledged on Saturday from the nest on Lough Derg, near Mountshannon in Co Clare, and later in the week it could be seen perched on tall pine trees nearby.
The successful fledgling marks another milestone in the White-tailed Eagle Reintroduction Programme, where the birds are being restored to the coasts and wetlands.
The parent birds that produced this chick made history last year when they became the first pair to produce two chicks that successfully fledged from a wild nest in Ireland in over 100 years.
Project manager Dr Allan Mee said the White-tailed Eagle Trust was reluctant to announce the news before they were satisfied the young chick was “out of the woods”.
“We were holding off until we knew the chick was going to be ok but she’s well out of the woods now and flying well,” he said.
It’s been a very successful year for the programme which began in 2007 and released 100 young Norwegian eagles in the Killarney National Park over a five-year period.
In total, seven pairs nested in counties Kerry, Cork, Clare and Galway but all except the Clare pair failed to hatch or rear chicks.
This was thought to be mainly due to inexperience and cold, wet weather during the spring.
A pair in Glengarriff in Co Cork also hatched chicks but these did not survive to fledgling.
However, Dr Mee has taken heart from the Clare success.
“It seems to be that all the pairs have to fail once to get in right.
“The Mountshannon pair also had a failed attempt the year before they successful raised two chicks last year,” he said.
Of the seven pairs, he hopes the ones that were not successful this year will go on to produce chicks next summer.
The programme is one of three being run in conjunction with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
There are also reintroduction programmes for the Golden Eagle and the Red Kite.
The White-tailed Eagle Programme has also been beset by tragedy and the loss of 29 of the original birds, mainly through poisoning.
There were 12 confirmed cases of poisoning and five suspected.
Three eagles were hit by a wind turbine, one was shot in Northern Ireland and another in Co Tipperary while another flew into a powerline. The other deaths are being attributed to natural causes.
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