December 2013: Denis O’Brien buys Topaz for €150 million (with a €150 million IBRC write off) amid some grumbling (above).
October 2015: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission clears the sale of Esso forecourts to Topaz.
December 2015: Denis O’Brien sells Topaz for an estimated €450 million-plus.
G’wan the capitalism.
Denis O’Brien sells Topaz for estimated €450m (Charlie Taylor, Irish Times)
New owner of Topaz says did not bid for the company when sold by liquidator of IBRC because “other priorities” and “complicated.”
— Tom Lyons (@TomLyonsBiz) December 2, 2015
Sponsored Link
Speculation is so easy with 20/20 foresight
Ireland’s collapse into the economic toilet was the best thing to ever happen to O’Brien.
I mean the rest of us are saddled with about 40k in bank debt, homelessness is sky-rocketing, suicides are booming but he’s raking it in and taking none of the pain since he’s Maltese now.
Good for him.
#Entrepreneur
#RiskTaker
#JobCreator
I have no debt.
let me suck your nether regions you beautiful person
Fellow emigre eh?
Depressing in it’s inevitability.
Tis
Although I’ll feel a bit less poo handing this new crowd over my yoyos for a tank’ah daysil #ItMustBeSaid
To be fair, O’Brien also paid €75 to merge Topaz with Esso (the combined company is being sold) and invested a tonne of money to bring up the standard of the whole group.
ya to be fair its all well and good when your fortune and success are built on winning a telephone license which resulted in a tribunal.
nothing to see here to be fair!
I’m guessing €75 is a typo, missing a few zeroes but if not…. what a deal! I want in on that deal…
I’m starting to admire his chutzpah
Chutzpah indeed.
I only came here to see amusing puns on the company name that purchased said Topaz & nothing…
Not a fecking sausage.
Is “he who must not be named” having money issues?
Yes, apparently he can’t get enough of it!
I LOVE THIS COUNTRY MORE AND MORE EVERYDAY :0)
* 6 surfs enter the room doing the Macarena *
Smurfs! :)
Serfs!
:D
Capitalism eh?
150 million write out, at our expense.. it’s socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor – when it suits.
Write down I should say.
he’s a great business man, hope he writes an autobiography
Apparently there’s been more footfall in your average cemetery than in the forecourts of Topaz since O’Brien got involved and roped in the ever-elegant Brian Cowen.
I had occasion too be in offaly a while back. Topaz are the only show in town, to the extent that any dissenters are told literally ‘on yer bike’..
Cool story, bro.
word
they actually increased profits
It’s called “making money work for you” Bodger.
Does Michael Lowry get a cut? After all he provided the seed capital, fair’s fair.
Dunno – there’s plenty to go around though.
No need for any greed (Moynes)
There is a big difference between being an entrepreneur and being an expert at sucking off the state’s t!ts until they dry up.
Seems like he may have made a nice return on Topaz. More power to him.
:-)
Ah boys, he has you all on overtime tonight.
Yep, cause no Irish person could ever be glad to see someone else doing well.
I don’t know about you Andy but I get a fiver a post. use it to pay my water charges!
I didn’t perform great last week so I’m on “probation”.
Commission only payable now per response generated.
I won’t struggle to pay my water charges anyway as I can always fall back on robbing the poor & disenfranchised.
*lights cigar with new €20 note*
@Andy Ah ole begrudgery chestnut… (Eyeroll) Funny so how most people have no problem saluting Michael O’Leary’s success, annoying though he can be. Now there’s a real entrepreneur AND he pays his taxes.
^ This explains to me how the likes of Haughey and Lowry got re-elected and defended ’til the end. There’ll always be a hardcore of people who can’t make the distinction between ‘someone doing well’ and someone fleecing them and everyone else in society.
He does not pay tax in this country he comes from, was educated in, and is permitted to live in and do so much ‘business’ in – that’s a gift from us to him.
We, this society, took a hit of 150 million to make this profit making possible – that’s a gift from us to him.
Along with the other gratuities we lavished upon him with Siteserv etc.
His wealth derives from the time he bought a minister of our government – that’s a gift from us to him. He’s rich because the people we elect betrayed us.
This isn’t an entrepreneur, it’s an oligarch making a mint in a kleptocracy, this is Russia in the 90’s territory. And useful idiots like you who will be paying for his ‘deals’ in taxes for the rest of your life make it possible.
Doing well? We don’t begrudge O’Brien you tone deaf gobsheens!
We’re peeved because the state sold something for far less than its value. The fact that this is not the first time this has happened with O’Brien and FG is part of the context (especially given tribunal findings), but even if it turns out that Denis is a saint and this was all above board, how in the hell did the state manage to flush that much money down the toilet!
I don’t know which would be worse – incompetence or corruption?
I don’t get it…
How many mortgage debt write offs have there been? Not many at all I don’t think.. as we still see reports of hundreds of thousands of people in mortgage arrears. There was a nurse one time who got a pretty hefty write down on her debt after the bank sold the house for pittance… AIB did it once too I think.
I think some of the schemes the banks have come up to get money out of people in arrears are things like interest only payments and ‘parking’ some of the mortgage till later.
Why can’t the debt on these types of sales be parked until later, instead of the tax payer funding massive write downs, only for huge profits to be made later on? We don’t do it for mortgage holders.