Billionaire Denis O’Brien Says Would Invest in Bank of Ireland
Irish Telecommunications and Media Billionaire Denis O’Brien
Ramin Talie/Bloomberg
Irish Telecommunications and Media Billionaire Denis O’Brien.
Irish Telecommunications and Media Billionaire Denis O’Brien. Photographer: Ramin Talie/Bloomberg
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) — Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, chairman of Digicel Group Ltd., talks about Ireland’s economic recovery and the country’s banking system.
He speaks with Maryam Nemazee and Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television’s “On the Move” at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. (Source: Bloomberg)
Denis O’Brien, the Irish
telecommunications and media billionaire, said he would invest
in Bank of Ireland Plc as the lender has “cleaned up its
balance sheet.”
“Bank of Ireland has taken the medicine,” O’Brien said in
an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Maryam Nemazee today at
the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
While Irish banks have written down their assets to market
values and been recapitalized, “other banks around Europe
haven’t done a mark-to-market.”
Irish taxpayers pumped about 62 billion euros ($81.5
billion) into the country’s largest six lenders, which have sold
risky real-estate loans to the National Asset Management Agency,
a so-called bad bank. At the same time, Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who said yesterday that “mad borrowing” lay behind the
country’s crash, is cutting spending to narrow the deficit.
“We have taken the cod-liver oil,” said O’Brien, ranked
as Ireland’s wealthiest man in the 2011 Sunday Times Rich List.
“Ireland is definitely on the turn.”
Bank of Ireland shares fell 0.9 percent to 11.5 euro cents
at 2:30 p.m. in Dublin. That’s still 15 percent higher than the
10-cent price at which the lender sold shares in July, and at
which the government sold stock to five investors in October.
Former Deputy Chairman
Ireland has injected 4.7 billion euros into the lender
since March 2009. The state cut its stake in Bank of Ireland to
15.1 percent by selling a 34.9 percent holding last year to
investors including Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings
Ltd. and WL Ross Co., the New York-based investment firm. The
bank is now the only domestic bank outside state control.
O’Brien, who controls Caribbean mobile-phone operator
Digicel Group Ltd., first generated his fortune from the 2.4
billion-euro sale of Esat Telecom Group Plc to British Telecom
Plc in 2000. He now has a 22 percent stake in Independent News
Media Plc, making him the largest shareholder in the Dublin-
based newspaper owner.
O’Brien resigned as deputy chairman of Bank of Ireland in
September 2006 to focus on his international business interests.
He joined the lender’s board as a director in April 2000,
according to a bank filing.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Joe Brennan at jbrennan29@bloomberg.net;
Finbarr Flynn at
fflynn3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net
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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/billionaire-denis-o-brien-says-would-invest-in-bank-of-ireland.html