*
One of Pat Kennedy’s most important undertakings had been to put his wealth out of reach of the tax-man … and just about everyone else. When it came to his own money his training and background in accounting made for a very careful man. He had learnt his lesson the hard way back in 2000, and the economic crisis had served as a great reminder of how tenuous prosperity was.
Since 2008, Pat had, not without trepidation, watched Irish bankers, tycoons and even a Rock star go bust, and justly so. To their everlasting regret many of them had invested in wild property schemes and other harebrained speculative adventures.
Pat had got out of property in 2006, when the market had started seriously overheating. Two years later he quietly slipped into Westminster Cathedral, where in a silent, but earnest prayer, he thanked the Lord, the Virgin Mary and Saint Patrick, for the first time in as long as he could remember, for having blessed him with the foresight to have got out the market when he did.
As for the hapless Rock star, after filing for bankruptcy, all he was left standing with was a diamond-encrusted wedding ring, said to be worth over thirty five thousand euros. His debts amounted to twenty million euros after his company had contracted a series of large loans to build a housing estate in County Leitrim. Only half of the homes were built and they were sold below cost.
Six years after the crisis, British banks were not yet out of the woods as multiple law suits were filed against them, by US authorities amongst others, accusing them of having misrepresented the quality of the mortgages they had sold.
“It seems like Götterdämmerung has been avoided Fitz,” Kennedy announced with a self-satisfied I-told-you-so smile, as he massacred the language of Goethe.
“What!” asked Fitzwilliams puzzled by Kennedy’s mashed words.
“The Bundestag’s constitutional court has said the bailouts to Greece are legal.”
“Oh, I see. I didn’t realize you could also speak German Pat.”
“No, you know like in Wagner.”
“What?”
“Götterdämmerung.”
“Forget it Pat, continue.”
“It just came through, a stock exchange newsflash.”
“A reprieve, for how long?”
“You think it’s that bad Fitz.”
“You’d better believe its bad Pat!”
It seemed like the judges did not want to have the collapse of the eurozone on their conscience. Whatever their reasons the markets bounced back and banking shares perked up in spite of the fact the rescue programme for Greece was heading for the rocks.
WEE FEEKERS!
“Will you look at these silly wee feekers!”
“What have you got now?” asked Fitzwilliams.
“The Irish Independent’s published recordings of Drumm’s telephone conversations at the Anglo-Irish.”
“What!”
“That silly feeker Drumm was taped on a phone call with Bowe laughing about the UK and Germany.”
“Jesus!”
“Yes, he said ‘get the feekin money in’. Then they both started singing Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles down the phone.”
“Idiots.”
“Listen to this, with the bank on the verge of collapse he said: ‘Another day, another billion’.”
In October 2008, the bank guarantee scheme was rushed through the Dáil to avoid the collapse of the country’s banking system. Deposits and borrowings were guaranteed for leading Irish-owned banks for two years to prevent a disastrous flight of depositors. Amongst these was the Anglo-Irish Bank, which was nationalised after huge losses, and evidence its directors had engaged in illegal business practices, including the attribution of loans to themselves and their friends.
“Drumm said: ‘Ah, you’re abusing that guarantee. Paying too much in Germany I heard now as well. Feekin ridiculous, John’.”
A regulator had called Bowe to tell him to be careful how it used the guarantee. Mimicking the regulator, Drumm said: ‘It’s feekin awful what’s going out there. I mean the feekin Germans are on to us now, David, you know.’
The Irish bank guarantee scheme caused a storm with Britain’s Chancellor phoning Ireland’s finance minister to tell him the scheme put UK banks in an impossible position, while Angela Merkel said it was unacceptable.
Drumm said: ‘We need the moolah, you have it, so you’re going to give it to us and when would that be? We’ll start there’ and if they didn’t get it he’d ‘hand the keys’ to the state, ‘because if they don’t give it to us on Monday they have a bank collapse. If the feekin money keeps running out the door, the way it has been running out the door.’
‘Stick fingers up,’ retorted Drumm, then adding he ‘had a pop’ at the Irish regulator ‘about Northern Rock. I said look they went around with the Union Jack wrapped tightly around them like a jumpsuit and grabbed all the deposits and where was our feekin minister for finance then?’
He continued: ‘So I’m playing a little bit of a game of “Oh Jesus, look we don’t want you to be under pressure, we’re going to do the best we can. We won’t do anything blatant but - we have to get the money in. We’ll have to feekin tiddly-winkle for it.”’
‘So I’m just saying to the guys, look, just be smart... don’t be stupid, get it in, don’t be overtly pumping it..., but we want to get the liquidity ratios up,’ Bowie replied.
‘Correct and right,’ Drumm said. ‘So OK just keep nursing along..., Jack the rates up. That’s what I really meant, get the feekin money in, get it in.’
Earlier Bowe had joked he had picked a seven billion figure ‘out my arse’ when Anglo-Irish tried to lure the Irish government into a huge bailout.
He was also heard telling Fitzgerald, ‘it would be “fantastic” if Anglo was nationalised because “we’d keep our jobs”’.
“The silly bastards can’t even speak English,” groaned Michael Fitzwilliams. “It’s about time the government set up a public inquiry into the business.”
Silently he was thinking, there but for the grace of God....
“The feekers will end up in prison,” said Pat with a frisson remembering his own brief sojourn at Mountjoy, Dublin’s grim prison.
The two men had a lot to be thankful for and they knew it.
“Drumm is living in Boston now,” said Pat more cheerfully.
“Don’t worry they’ll extradite him.”
“Unless he scoots to Panama,” added Pat with a laugh.
“There’s a lesson there Pat.”
“Oh!”
“Yes. Be very careful what you say over the phone … and by the way, check to see if all our phones are encrypted.”
A BONANZA
Pat Kennedy waltzed in with a broad smile on his face, for once there was good news from Ireland. The confirmation of oil and gas reserves under the sea bed surrounding the Emerald Isles seemed to confirm the proverbial luck of the Irish.
“Would you look at this Fitz,” he said waving a copy of The Times at Fitzwilliams. An Irish oil bonanza.
“I’ve read it,” said the banker, “Don’t hold your breath Pat.”
“Well it’s official from Providence Resources survey,” replied Pat deflated by Fitzwilliams’ lack of enthusiasm.
“Let’s hope it’s true because we’ve got a bet running on his company.”
“Bet?”
“Yes Pat, I don’t have to remind you it was on your recommendation we loaned them money for the drilling rigs they bought from Sergei Tarasov’s friends in Russia.”
“Gazprom. They’re part of the farm-out process.”
“What?”
“Farm-out. That means bringing in qualified partners for production purposes, like Gazprom.”
“Whatever.”
“Michael, don’t forget we have shares in Reilly’s company.”
“We?”
“You and I.”
“How come.”
“That’s the way I set up the deal.”
“Well let’s hope
he has more success than his old man.”
“It’s not the same thing Fitz.”
“What’s it worth then?” said Fitzwilliams in a more accommodating tone.
“Quite a bit Michael. The shares have shot up three hundred percent this morning on the stock exchange.”
“Dublin?”
“London.”
Tony Reilly, son of the ill fated Anthony Reilly - Ireland’s long time golden boy, held the rights to several blocks in the Celtic Sea, off the coast of Cork, where the discovery had been made. His company, aptly named Providence Resources, was soon scheduled to start production from the Barryroe Field.
Oil, so he believed, was about to transform Ireland’s fortunes after the crisis years, and his battle against hard-core eco-warriors who had persistently blocked production, preventing the company’s take off and the flow of new much needed revenues to the state’s coffers.
NICARAGUA
Wang’s involvement in the canal was the fruit of a meeting in 2012 with the son of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega. It came as Wang sought to expand his telecom business into the country, the poorest in the Western hemisphere after Haiti.
Wang imagined the potential Nicaragua offered: it was virgin territory, abandoned by its neighbours and above all left to its sad fate by the US. There were sea and air ports to build, the development of tourism as in nearby Costa Rica and Panama, and the creation of free trade zones. Nicaragua’s geostrategical location would open a new gateway to lucrative North and South American markets, an attractive new manufacturing and distribution hub with its population of eight million, a willing labour force that could be put to work for the production of consumer goods with costs even lower than those of China.
China was cautious, and for complex diplomatic reasons did not want Beijing to be seen as being directly involved. If fact China did not even enjoy diplomatic relations with Nicaragua and the risk of being thought to mess with the US in its own backyard was too great.
Panama and Nicaragua
Moreover, Nicaragua was one of the few remaining countries to still recognise Taiwan, a fact that went a long way to explaining Beijing’s reluctance to be seen as being directly involved in the project, leaving that role to HKND, a private company based in Hong Kong.
Rumour had it Wang was the son of a high-ranking military official and a grandson of Wang Zhen, one of the Eight Elders of the Chinese Communist Party, a die-hard conservative, notorious for his hard-line stance on the Tiananmen demonstrations, all of which would make the entrepreneur a princeling in the ranks of China’s so called Red Royalty.
His connections went a long way to explaining why his company, the Xinwei Group, was one of the first private firms to be able to invest in China’s space industry; normally an exclusively military industrial establishment affair. Xinwei, a certified vendor to the People’s Liberation Army, planned to put thirty two telecommunication satellites into orbit, something that was inconceivable in China without state approval and the evident backing of the military.
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