Author Archives: Aaron McAllorum

English.

“Assuming more normalised advertising conditions, easier comparatives, continued cost vigilance and having eliminated loss-making businesses, we are targeting a further improvement in operating profit for the year.

“This coupled with accelerated free cash flow generation, will ensure further meaningful deleveraging in 2011.”

Gavin O’Reilly, announcing profits at Independent News and Media yesterday.

(Photocall Ireland)

Sarah Carey in today’s Irish Times says she’s sorry for lying to the Moriarty Tribunal about the leaking of documents to political reporter Stephen Collins.

However, she once again glosses over her role in facilitating donations between Esat and Fine Gael.

The first issue is pretty straightforward. In 1995 I was 23 and the “marketing co-ordinator”, a relatively junior position, of Esat Telecom, which meant I helped organise marketing activities like corporate events for customers, advertising or product launches. I also dealt with the relationship between Esat and the Department of Communications, which was extremely fraught.

What Sarah Doesn’t Say: Sarah was 23, in “a relatively junior position”. But she was also a well-connected graduate of Trinity College and the Michael Smurfit Business School, which is why she was responsible for the relationship between Esat Digifone and the Department of Communications.

Esat was compiling a bid for the mobile phone licence. So I suggested to Denis O’Brien that showing up at Fine Gael fundraisers, typically lunches for £100 a head, would be a handy way to meet ministers so we could improve the company’s profile.

What Sarah doesn’t say: Sarah was connected to the Fine Gael party through her family. Her father was a FG councillor and she had known Phil Hogan, the party’s chairman at the time, according to her own testimony, “for years”.

This campaign culminated in sponsoring a golf tournament for £4,000. Initially we were going to have a sign at the golf event announcing Esat’s sponsorship and then O’Brien changed his mind about that. So a letter from me to Phil Hogan, who was running the event, requesting the return of Esat’s logo, is mentioned in the report.

What Sarah doesn’t say: There was no mention of logos. Moriarty reported “with respect to the wording of her own letter of October 9, in which she stated, “I understand Denis has requested there are no references made to his contribution at the event:, Ms Carey agreed that this seemed to indicate that she had been made aware of some dialogue between Mr O’Brien and Mr Hogan in this regard, although she did not have a specific recollection.”

I know this system of corporate fundraising for political parties leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths but I really don’t think anyone has any ethical issues to answer here. These events happen regularly, and in the case of the lunches everyone could see who was attending them. It couldn’t have been more transparent and I’m completely comfortable in standing by these normal corporate and political activities.

What Sarah doesn’t say: Moriarty reported that Sarah “agreed with tribunal counsel that the Golf Classic donation was made right in the middle of the licence competition, and stated that it was necessary to be somewhat discreet in the making of the payment, so that the media would not then become aware of it, or opportunities be provided whereby opponents or journalists might have misconstrued it.”

Lying To The Tribunal Was A Black Spot On My Record (Irish Times)

Earlier: You Did See Sarah Carey On Prime Time Didn’t You?

Dear Phil, Yours, Sarah

Very, Very, S. Carey

(RTE Prime Time)


By Dominic Hyde

Yes, Denis O’Brien is a wealthy man and has a majority shareholding in the newspaper I write for.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not a stand-up guy.

The Big D, as almost no one calls him, would have been filthy rich even if he hadn’t bunged Lowry all that money (which didn’t happen because Moriarty is a crazy vengeful judge).

‘D’ was already rolling in the folding stuff long before Esat came along.

At school, he would sell crushed beetles to the younger boys for extortionate sums. He also ran a numbers and protection racket which made him a millionaire by the time he sat his Inter Cert.

This is where I met him. He paid for me to sit his exams, but rather than give me money he offered me something more valuable, advice.

The advice being: don’t sit someone else’s exam unless you get the money upfront.

He would savagely bully me sometimes within inches of me actually dying, but as we grew up, we became closer. Rather than burn my flesh with a lighted cigarette, he would often throw – oh, the irony – mobile phones at my head.

These were the days when a mobile phone sometimes weighed as much as a bag of sugar or a small child. Imagine being hit on the head with a bag of sugar or a small child three or four times a day. it’s no fun. But it did teach me a thing or two about life.

If it looks like a duck, you should duck.

(Cont. p64)

30th August, 1995

Dear Denis,

I am delighted to hear of your response in becoming a sponsor of the Fine Gael Golf Classic. I gather this arose through discussions with  Mark FitzGerald. Your very generous sponsorship of £4,000 will be used two-fold, with £1,000 sponsoring a hole and the remaining balance sponsoring the wine for the Gala Dinner. As I am sure Mark already discussed with you, appropriate advertising will be utilised.

I look forward to your attending the dinner on the night which I think  will be an excellent evening.

Again many thanks for your kind support.

Yours sincerely,

PHIL HOGAN T.D.

8th September, 1995

Dear Denis,

Following my earlier correspondence last week, regarding our
upcoming Golf Classic, I would be very grateful if you could forward to Fine Gael Headquarters (by Friday 16th September) for the attention of  Ms. Eileen Kelly, a disk with your company’s logo etc. Or alternatively a bromide listing the colours used in your logo. This would greatly enhance the advertisement at each hole which is being made available to our sponsors.

I look forward to seeing you at the Gala dinner that evening.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

Phil Hogan T.D.

9th October, 1995,

Dear Phil

Please find enclosed a draft for the Golf on the 16th.

I understand Denis has requested that there are no references made to his contribution at the event.

Best of Luck on the day!

I’ll give you a call soon

Yours sincerely

Sarah Carey
Marketing Co-ordinator.

And that’s politics, folks.

The face of Jeremy Morlock, a young US soldier, grins at the camera, his hand holding up the head of the dead and bloodied youth he and his colleagues have just killed in an act military prosecutors say was premeditated murder.

Moments before the picture was taken in January last year, the unsuspecting victim had been waved over by a group of US soldiers who had driven to his village in Kandahar province in one of their armoured Stryker tanks.

Photos Shows Soldiers In Afghanistan Posing With Dead Civilians (Guardian)

From Moriarty:

“Despite the procedures put in place to preserve the integrity of the process, what the Tribunal found was that the process was far from sealed, and Mr. Lowry was far from being an encouraging  but disinterested Minister, who responded positively to the advice of his most senior civil servant that he should exercise caution in dealings with interested  parties.

Rather, what transpired was that Mr. Lowry displayed
an appreciable  interest in the substantive process, had irregular interactions with interested parties at its most sensitive stages, sought and received substantive information on emerging trends, made his preferences as between the leading candidates known, conveyed his views on how the financial weakness of Esat Digifone
should be countered, ultimately brought a guillotine down on the work of the Project Group, proceeded to bypass consideration by his Cabinet colleagues, and thereby not only influenced, but delivered, the result that he announced on 25th October, 1995, that Esat Digifone had won the evaluation process, which ultimately led to the licensing of Esat Digifone on 16th May, 1996. Each of these
elements of Mr. Lowry’s insidious and pervasive influence on the process will now be addressed.

Before the ink was dry on the Government Decision of 2nd March, 1995, authorising the process, Mr. Lowry lent currency within his Department to a groundless rumour that, if the Persona consortium won the second GSM licence, it would result in a “nest egg” for a former prominent Fianna Fáil politician. This rumour was also deployed by Mr. Lowry to his advantage, when he relayed it to the then Taoiseach, his party leader, Mr. John Bruton T.D., in asserting and endeavouring to convince Mr. Bruton that there was no room for Government discretion on his recommendation of the result of the process. At the same time, Mr. Lowry sought further to neutralise consideration by Government of that recommendation, by indicating that a brother of Mr. Ruairi Quinn T.D., the Minister for Finance, was connected with a member of the third- ranked consortium, Irish Mobicall.

Mr. Lowry’s negative view of Persona was also
conveyed by him to a relatively junior, but influential, member of the Project Group, when Mr. Lowry spoke to him directly in mid-September, 1995, and sought reassurance that the process had not concluded in favour of Persona, who, on that occasion, he described as the bookies favourite.

More to follow…

International Economy magazine, which is like Take A Break for money managers and market analysts, asked a number of “top thinkers” how likely are countries on the “Eurozone periphary” (Portugal, Greece, Ireland) to default outright on soveriegn debt over the next three to five years.

Here’s how they scored Ireland’s chances:

Desmond Lachman, Resident Fellow American Enterprise Institute: CERTAIN

Barton M Biggs, Managing Partner, Traxis Partners: CERTAIN

Louis Bacon, CEO Moore capital management: CERTAIN

Samuel Brittan, Columnist Financial Times: UNLIKELY

Robert K Steel, Deputy Mayor of Economic Development, New York City: PROBABLE

Karl Otto Pohl, Former President, German Bundesbank: UNLIKELY

Jim O’Neill, Chairman Asset Management, Goldman Sachs: UNLIKELY

Tadashi Nakamae, President Nakamae International Economic Research: PROBABLE

Horst M Teltschik, Former president Beoing Germany: PROBABLE

Richard N Cooper, Professor of International Economics, Harvard: UNLIKELY

Michael J Boskin, Professor of Economics, Stanford University: FIFTY/FIFTY

Maya Bhandari, Head of Emerging Markets, Lombard Street Research: PROBABLE

Bernard Connolly, Managing Director, Connolly Macro Advisors: CERTAIN

Wendy Dobson, Former Associate Deputy Minister of Finance, Canada: CERTAIN

Benjamin Friedman, Professor of Political Economy, Harvard: PROBABLE

Makoto Utsumi, President and CEO, Japan Credit Agency: WON’T HAPPEN

Edward Yardeni, President, Yardeni Research: UNLIKELY

Catherine L Mann, Professor of Global Finance, Brandeis University: CERTAIN

Ronald McKinnon, Professor of International Economics, Stanford: PROBABLE

Jean Pierre Patat, President Thierry Apoteker Consulting: UNLIKELY

James M Glassman, Senior Economist, JPMorgan Chase: UNLIKELY

Norbert Walter, Chief Economist Emeritus, Deutsche Bank: PROBABLE

Bowman Cutter, Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institute: CERTAIN

Charles Wolf, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution: UNLIKELY

David K P Li, Chairman, Bank of East Asia: PROBABLE

Robert J Shapiro, Former US Under Secretary of Commerce: CERTAIN

Murray Weidenbaum, Mallinckrodt Professor, Washington University: PROBABLE

James Capra, Capra Asset Management: PROBABLE

Download: International Economy: Sovereign Debt Symposium (PDF)