Was part of the aim of the guarantee a misguided attempt to give the Quinn group more breathing room?
Hi Sunny
I would say that the FR is very concerned about the implications of problems in Quinn Insurance Ltd for Anglo. You can be quite sure that we now have joined up thinking in the FR. They will be acutely conscious that selling off Quinn in a firesale could cost Anglo aka the taxpayer €3bn. I would think that he will look at the big picture.
But he won't be deterred by ill-informed protests and poitical pressure, such as it is.
Brendan
(Maybe this should be a separate thread), in my attempt to piece all of this together, I'd like to understand your thinking here.The simple answer is no.
(Maybe this should be a separate thread), in my attempt to piece all of this together, I'd like to understand your thinking here.
Is there not some speculation that Lenihan & Cowen acted against advice in including anglo? (e.g. )
And those who pointed out the very serious risks at the time were just ignored.Plenty of people including myself thought it was the right move at the time. I can now see that the Guarantee was too crude an instrument and that we might have been better off letting Anglo go.
And those who pointed out the very serious risks at the time were just ignored.
What is your view on what Brian Carey said on PrimeTime , regarding the fact that if the capital hole in Quinn is now at 700m (up from 100mil originally) then the state would probably have a very hard time offloading such an insurance /business group off to private investors any time soon....I think Anglo wants to get rid of the Admistrator as quickly as possible so that their investment is protected. A long term administration would damage the Quinn Group's viability.
So I suspect that Anglo would buy it with a view to refurbishing it and selling it on.
Brendan
Absolutely agree. The heads at the very top may have changed, but it is still that same heads doing the day to day work that got us into this huge mess.To my mind though Anglo is a failed institution and should not be used as a vehicle of convenience in any of this. If the govt has to get involved, so be it, but more directly.
There is a 3rd option Brendan. Quinn revokes or walks away from whatever guarantees were put in place on the assets of the insurance company. We probably need to know a bit more about these guarantees before we decide this. There is no way that the State should again be left to pick up the tab, particularly if these guarantees relate to personal borrowings of family members. We can't let them away with the 'privatise the profits, socialise the losses' approach.
Absolutely, with one amendment. The law should be amended retrospectively to void these guarantees.I would have thought that guarantees that have the effect to reduce Quinn Insurance's unemcumbered assets below a statutory minimum solvency ratio ought to be void as being against the public interest (and if it isn't maybe the law needs to be amended so that if future they would be).
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