# Anglo loans - has Shane Ross ever criticized Irish Nationwide?



## Mortgagor

Hello,

Just heard on the Pat Kenny show that our beloved INBS was the institution that facilitated Sean Fitzpatrick's temporary transfer of loans from Anglo-Irish Bank at the end of each year for the last 7 (or whatever it was) years. As if the INBS stock wasn't low enough already (I mean this metaphorically, I know there is no such a thing as a shareholder in INBS etc etc) ...

Share Ross was on the programme and was very guarded, as usual, in his comments about Irish Nationwide. Does anybody recall him ever criticising them?

INBSMember.


----------



## GeneralZod

*Re: Irish Nationwide Facilitated Fitzpatrick Loans*



INBSMember said:


> Share Ross was on the programme and was very guarded, as usual, in his comments about Irish Nationwide. Does anybody recall him ever criticising them?



Exactly 3 months ago he took as swing at the Regulator, Anglo, and INBS .


----------



## Brendan Burgess

*Re: Irish Nationwide Facilitated Fitzpatrick Loans*

I don't consider the following a "swing"



> Anglo and Nationwide have the same problems as all the Irish banks. They all overlent to real property "speculators".



He has never criticized the Irish Nationwide. 

He has never criticized the fact that this financial institution is dominated by one person. 

In fact, this consumer champion has attacked the people who raised the lending practices of the Irish Nationwide at the AGM. 

I have never seen him carry any of the stories of overcharging by the Irish Nationwide or any of the Ombudsman's findings against them.

When Reuters(?) carried the story about the Irish Nationwide being in talks with their bankers, Shane Ross went on the radio to defend the Irish Nationwide as the best capitalized of the Irish financial institutions.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

*Re: Irish Nationwide Facilitated Fitzpatrick Loans*

Here is a classic from Shane Ross in April 2003

*Fingleton's little people savage rebels *

Sunday April 27 2003
                           'YOU should have a prostate job," advised Charlie, the uniformed  commissionaire at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin 4, unhelpfully.   I  had just surfaced from the tedious AGM of Irish Nationwide, visibly  drained. Charlie asked me how the meeting had gone. I muttered a few  words about how tediously tiring  the skirmish had been. 

   His  cheerful solution for my exhaustion was "a prostate job just like Alan  Greenspan". A bit extreme for AGM fatigue, but Charlie himself had  recently volunteered for one and started to regale me with the finer  details of his consequent bodily revival. 

    Not very welcome  advice to a flagging 53-year-old; but far more practical than most of  the embarrassing nonsense spoken by Brendan Burgess and others of his  gang at the Irish Nationwide meeting, billed as the exit of the  society's boss, Michael Fingleton. 

   After the flop last  Thursday, the deflated rebels should top up with Viagra as a  reinforcement, or opt for Charlie's prostate job. 

    The meeting  ended in triumph for the man branded an autocrat. The extent of the  boss's victory - five to one on a motion of confidence - was stunning,  considering all the bad publicity and tales of woe peddled about him. 

    Yet the outcome was puzzling. How could a group of malcontents emerge so badly scarred from a members' meeting? 

   The trouble with the rebels was that they were profiteers posing as philanthropists. The rebels want the loot. 
    Today. 

     Their determination to hasten the sale of the society forced them to  parade trophy victims at the AGM. Every hard luck story was told.  Members who had not repaid their loans  were wheeled out as victims, not  defaulters. They lambasted Fingleton for behaving like a businessman,  not a benefactor. 
   Simultaneously they wanted a share  flotation, the proceeds of his success, in the form of  a €7,000 payout  per member. The lads were invoking Vincent de Paul to enrich   themselves. Not a bad trick, if you can get away with it. 

    But  Burgess's gang didn't. This was no meeting dominated by fatcat bankers  with millions of proxies. It was the little man and little woman's day  out. Every borrower and lender had one vote. And the little people  turned against the rebels despite all the pre-AGM hype. 

    Fingleton's stewardship can be criticised. 
    Sure, he needs more heavyweights on the board. Sure, he has been overzealous in his  pursuit of defaulters. 
   Sure, he earns an awful lot of money (€835,000). Sure he has been less than  transparent. 
   But Fingleton, for all his faults, has delivered the only thing that matters in business:  profit. 

     The rebels desperately needed losses as ammunition to fire at their  target. At the same  time they wanted profit to line their pockets. 
   There were two turning points in the meeting. 

    The first was when independent director Con Power spoke up for  Fingleton. Con Power  - who, when he was a member of Albert Reynolds's  kitchen cabinet, was sometimes wittily dubbed as 'all con and no power' -  dismissed Burgess's claim that there was an  untoward error in the  accounts. 
    Power, an accountant , convincingly reassured the  little people in the audience that a €9  million adjustment in the  profit and loss account was not due to an error, but was merely a timing  matter. The society had prudently provided too much for bad debts in  the past, incurring a tax liability in later years. 
    The board  was suddenly revealed as having an articulate voice, a man equipped to  take  on Fingleton, the guy dubbed a dictator, if necessary. 

    Where were the promised stuffed dummies on the five man board? Michael  Walsh, the  chairman, was skilful. Dermot Desmond's right-hand man  allowed the rebels to drone on for hours, eventually boring the audience  to  anger. 

   As Burgess rose to raise yet another tedious  point - after three-and-a-half hours of tedium already - the second key  moment occurred. 
   One of the little people rose to his feet  and turned on him. To loud applause he accused the leader of the  dissidents of a "filibuster". At that moment the game was up and it was  all downhill for a rebellion without a cause. 

    Instinctively,  many of us go to AGMs with a sympathy for the voices from the floor. In  the case of Eircom, First Active, Smurfits and the big banks, the top  table was enriching itself  while small shareholders were losing vast  sums of money. The big battalions were  scratching each others' backs,  casting millions of pensioners' votes in favour of their chums on the  podium. In the Eircom shareholder rebellion, the 4,000 small  shareholders in the hall were almost  unanimously against the board. In  the Nationwide's case, on Thursday, the average member soon saw the  rebels as a threat to their society's continued success. Fingleton,  despite all his abrasiveness, was delivering small riches to them. 

'After  the flop last  Thursday, the deflated  rebels should top up with Viagra  as a reinforcement, or opt for Charlie's prostate job' 

       In the only show-of-hands vote at the meeting the board won by an overwhelming number. 

     The punters knew that Fingleton's salary was too high. But they also  knew that figures produced by the Nationwide under his leadership are  staggering. 
    When he took over in 1972, profits were €44,000.  Today they are €97 million. Assets  were €5.5 million. Today they are  €5.5 billion. The cost-to-income ratio was 53 per cent. Today it is 22  per cent. Reserves have risen from €210,000 to €4.3 billion. Branches  are  up from one to 50. Staff have jumped from seven to 400. 

    Hardly a good case for dismissal. 

    Next year, profits are set to rise to €100 million for the first  time. Next year, legislation is due to allow Fingleton to sell the  society to a big bank. 
    If that happens, every qualifying member will reap a reward of maybe as much as  €7,000. 

     It was a classic example of how not to challenge a board of  directors. Real reforms had  already been conceded. The wrong target was  now being picked at the wrong time. As  the meeting progressed, the  punters turned against the rebels. 
   They had blown it.


----------



## GeneralZod

Ok, more a minor jab than a swing.

It sounds like I'm at a disadvantage here.

He even seemed to defend INBS over the .  There's no doubt that he doesn't like the regulator at least.


----------



## ubiquitous

It is clear that Michael Fingleton has significant (if presumably informal) influence over, and connections with, the senior editorial management of the Sunday Independent.


----------



## Bobby1

whatever problems EBS has, I dont think they compare to the state of INBS- the fact that Ross clearly have some death wish against EBS due to his reporting on them almost every Sunday- its quite obvious he is connected in some way to the shower in INBS, as he overlooks chance after chance to splash them on the back page of the business section


----------



## Complainer

ubiquitous said:


> It is clear that Michael Fingleton has significant (if presumably informal) influence over, and connections with, the senior editorial management of the Sunday Independent.


I'm sure that the Indo wouldn't let themselves be influenced by a few sponsorship shekels http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?locID=462&docID=1976

INBS had a reputation of providing mortgages to journalists and politicians in their heyday.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

> INBS had a reputation of providing mortgages to journalists and politicians in their heyday.



That is true, but it has not stopped any other journalist from reporting on the Irish Nationwide. 

This cannot be the reason why Shane Ross praises them and refused to criticize them.

Brendan


----------



## kildon

is there any history between Shane Ross and EBS??? agree with previous posts, he keeps harping on about the EBS and their subsidiary Haven...there are far bigger issues to tackle yet he continues to bore me with his personal agenda against EBS
btw...what is going to happen with IL&P, INBS, EBS and Haven???


----------



## Complainer

INBS is conspicuous by its absence in yet another article from Senator Ross where he makes a 'call to action' to bank shareholders for the upcoming AGM season. Will the Senator be attending the INBS AGM, do you reckon?


----------



## Mortgagor

In fairness to the Sindo, Alan Ruddock is pretty critical of the INBS today, calling for high court inspectors to be sent in:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/lenihan-has-to-get-tougher-on-banks-1605849.html

Of course not a peep from the good Senator about INBS on the back page of the business section 

super_freddie_blue.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

The Independent group has never spared the Irish Nationwide. The main journalist to highlight their lending practices was Bill Tyson when the was the Personal Finance Editor of the Indo. 

That is good to see criticism in the Sindo.

Brendan


----------



## Binomial

Over the last few weeks Senator Shane Ross has pontificated on the ills of Anglo and the other banks (AIB, BOI, IL&P etc) yet he has not even commented that most dysfunctional and news worthy bank "Irish Nationwide".


----------



## Binomial

It will be interesting to note if Senator Shane Ross (Business Editor with the Sunday Independent) will comment on Mr Fingleton's outrageous bonus accepted after the government bail out.


----------



## extopia

Well. Shane Ross is on Prime Time right now. He thinks Fingleton should resign. He believes Fingleton's bonus is "utterly unacceptable." Does that count as criticism?


----------



## Complainer

Interesting to see that Shane has seen the light! 

I see that the Shinners had some shenanigans at INBS HQ this morning; http://www.indymedia.ie/article/91664


----------



## Brendan Burgess

That was brilliant. Well done Prime Time. 

Shane Ross sat quietly and said nothing about the Irish Nationwide. He launched into a tirade of abuse about the EBS and the Bank of Ireland and their upcoming AGMs. He tried hard to muddy the waters and avoid the Irish Nationwide. 

He allowed Joan Burton speak about the Irish Nationwide.

Mark Little turned to Shane Ross and said:

"Shane Ross. Dan Boyle said today Michael Fingleton has come to personify all that is wrong with Irish Banking"

Shane Ross: "What we are seeing here...what we are confusing all the time..."misdeameanours and behaving unethically" ...and on the other side ...a raft of bankers who are being paid too much who should all go"



Then Little asked him straight out "Should Fingleton resign?" Ross said " Yes, of course.They should all resign" 

Then he asked him"Should he give back the bonus" and Ross had nowhere to go but replied that he should that €1m was an unreal payment.

Great to see it.


----------



## Bronte

I seem to be missing the point here.  Shane Ross never criticizes Irish Nationwide/Fingleton and you guys seem to be implying something in that but I don't see it.  Is Shane Ross friends with Fingleton, is that it?


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi Bronte

We are pointing out nothing further than up to last night, Shane Ross had never criticized the Irish Nationwide or Michael Fingleton. In fact, he has proactively defended them. And he has attacked those of us who spoke up on behalf of the borrowers. 

This is completely at odds with his attacks on every other institution. 

I don't know the reason for this. I would love to know. 

Rainyday implied that it might have something to do with advertising, but that is not the reason.

Brendan


----------



## Conan

Listening to Ross last night he seemed to say the "misdeameanours and behaving unethically" (and referred to Sean Fitzpatrick as an example) was less serious than bankers being paid too much.  

He certainly seems to have an agenda in relation to some institutions but is very quiet when it comes to others (Fingers etc). With Shane it is often more heat than light and last night was another example of confusion and muddying waters.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

The Sindo attacks The Irish Times for criticizing The Irish Nationwide 

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/a-quick-loan-off-with-her-head-1690216.html

I don't know who the author is, but apparently it's not Shane Ross. 

Here is a quote the Senator would be proud of:



> And they[The Irish Times] needed all the loaded words they could get in order to chase down [broken link removed], whose good deed in giving back his bonus had to be denigrated.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

On 30th April Morning Ireland had a review of Fingleton's career and Shane Ross was interviewed. He said that he had gone from hero to villian. 

Fingers got great praise from Michael Smurfit and some Kerry GAA player who said that he was very good to the GAA. 

Brendan


----------



## Complainer

Looks like Shane isn't quite so reticent about criticising INBS now that Fingers has gone - see [broken link removed]


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Michael Clifford, of the Sunday Tribune, has a good article on the role of the Sunday Independent's journalists and Michael Fingleton. Oddly enough, he hasn't mentioned Shane Ross, but I have commented on the article, pointing this out.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

bump


----------

