Dublin’s role as global finance’s “Wild West” under spotlight after Russian bank colllapse https://t.co/bdccBMF4em pic.twitter.com/BClGvxks1F
— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) February 24, 2016
Oh.
Based in a drab office building in Dublin down the road from a pub frequented by Prime Minister Enda Kenny, VPB Funding Ltd. had no employees but one function: selling bonds. In 2013, it issued $225 million of unsecured notes.
The proceeds of that sale were funneled to Vneshprombank Ltd., a Moscow lender whose license was revoked last month when Russian authorities accused management of pilfering its assets and falsifying accounts. VPB’s notes have plunged to pennies on the dollar.
The entanglement of an obscure Dublin firm in the woes of a lender 2,000 miles away shows why Irish officials have begun shining a light on special purpose vehicles like VPB, unregulated entities that borrow on behalf of corporations throughout the world.
The Irish capital, home of Europe’s costliest banking meltdown, remains a hub for the sort of opaque operations that contributed to the global financial crisis, threatening risks that policy makers are seeking to stamp out.
Russian Bank Collapse Shines Light on Risks in Irish Shadows (Bloomberg)
Thanks Rory
Meanwhile…
So, we don’t do brass plate companies in our country. So you have a plate…Apple employ 5,000 people, who go to work everyday. Obviously if you manufacture something there and you sell it in France or Italy, the intellectual property is invested elsewhere, these are the complexities and the challenges that are there.”
Enda kenny speaking at Davos in January