1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:03,348 --> 00:00:06,178 [suspenseful music] 3 00:00:06,213 --> 00:00:08,732 [gates squeal] 4 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 5 00:00:12,115 --> 00:00:15,118 [suspenseful music] 6 00:00:20,572 --> 00:00:24,438 - There's achievers in life and there's destructors in life. 7 00:00:25,577 --> 00:00:26,923 I'm one of the achievers. 8 00:00:29,546 --> 00:00:31,824 What I want to be remembered for the man that they tried 9 00:00:31,859 --> 00:00:34,448 to bury and they weren't able to bury him. 10 00:00:39,142 --> 00:00:41,593 [upbeat music] 11 00:00:49,497 --> 00:00:50,878 [upbeat music continues] 12 00:00:50,912 --> 00:00:54,088 When you drive up that mountain road and you see 13 00:00:54,123 --> 00:00:58,299 all the factories, the windmills on the skyline, 14 00:00:58,334 --> 00:01:00,784 everything is down to the one man. 15 00:01:03,615 --> 00:01:07,101 You're talking about factories covering maybe 200 acres. 16 00:01:09,724 --> 00:01:12,451 - [Ian] They had this one thing up in Cavan and Fermanagh. 17 00:01:12,486 --> 00:01:13,418 They had Quinn. 18 00:01:16,766 --> 00:01:19,113 - He was on the Forbes list of billionaires. 19 00:01:19,148 --> 00:01:22,116 - [Reporter] Sean Quinn is fighting the courts over loans 20 00:01:22,151 --> 00:01:23,842 of nearly 3 billion Euro. 21 00:01:25,568 --> 00:01:27,466 - [News Anchor] Businessman Sean Quinn has been declared 22 00:01:27,501 --> 00:01:29,019 bankrupt at- 23 00:01:29,054 --> 00:01:30,573 - [Reporter 2] The former billionaire Sean Quinn 24 00:01:30,607 --> 00:01:33,300 has been jailed for nine weeks for contempt of court. 25 00:01:34,542 --> 00:01:37,338 - [Reporter] Vandalism, assaults, bullets in the post. 26 00:01:42,309 --> 00:01:44,725 - We will not go quietly into the night. 27 00:01:44,759 --> 00:01:46,416 Make no mistake about it. 28 00:01:46,451 --> 00:01:47,210 This is a war. 29 00:01:48,625 --> 00:01:50,386 - [Reporter] Kevin Lunney is recovering in hospital, 30 00:01:50,420 --> 00:01:52,871 the PSNI say his injuries are life changing. 31 00:01:54,838 --> 00:01:56,599 - [Sean] What they've done to me is wrong. 32 00:01:57,772 --> 00:02:00,292 I have made plenty of mistakes, 33 00:02:00,327 --> 00:02:02,605 but I think it's important that the Quinns 34 00:02:02,639 --> 00:02:04,054 tells the true story. 35 00:02:09,474 --> 00:02:12,097 [intense music] 36 00:02:19,449 --> 00:02:20,761 Ah, sure. 37 00:02:20,795 --> 00:02:24,178 It's hard to believe that it's your own people 38 00:02:24,213 --> 00:02:27,077 that you've worked for 20, 25 years is doing it to you. 39 00:02:27,112 --> 00:02:28,631 It's just hard to believe. 40 00:02:28,665 --> 00:02:31,599 I mean, it was hard to believe they'd go and try 41 00:02:31,634 --> 00:02:33,601 to take the business off us and put me and my son 42 00:02:33,636 --> 00:02:35,085 out of the business. 43 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:37,985 And it's soul destroying and it makes no sense. 44 00:02:38,019 --> 00:02:40,367 - [Reporter] 50-year-old Kevin Lunney, who is a director 45 00:02:40,401 --> 00:02:43,473 and chief operating officer with Quinn Industrial Holdings, 46 00:02:43,508 --> 00:02:47,650 was abducted, assaulted and found two hours later. 47 00:02:47,684 --> 00:02:49,997 - For years now, five men have been subjected 48 00:02:50,031 --> 00:02:54,035 to a campaign involving vandalism, sabotage, 49 00:02:54,070 --> 00:02:57,177 bullets in the post, assaults, arson attacks. 50 00:02:57,211 --> 00:02:59,213 - [Speaker] We will want to see the security forces act 51 00:02:59,248 --> 00:03:01,595 and deal with the paymaster who is paying 52 00:03:01,629 --> 00:03:03,355 for these activities and orchestrating 53 00:03:03,390 --> 00:03:06,324 this ongoing campaign of intimidation. 54 00:03:07,704 --> 00:03:09,223 - And then they turnaround now and blame us 55 00:03:09,258 --> 00:03:10,914 for being involved in criminal activity 56 00:03:10,949 --> 00:03:13,123 and abducting Kevin Lunney. 57 00:03:13,158 --> 00:03:17,645 I mean, it's beyond comprehension that your own friends 58 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:19,406 and your own staff and your own neighbors 59 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:20,821 would do it to you. 60 00:03:20,855 --> 00:03:24,065 - There are a small number of individuals involved, 61 00:03:24,100 --> 00:03:27,793 paid to carry out these tasks and we need to get 62 00:03:27,828 --> 00:03:28,691 to the crux of it. 63 00:03:28,725 --> 00:03:30,417 We need to get it dealt with. 64 00:03:30,451 --> 00:03:32,591 And it is a law enforcement issue. 65 00:03:32,626 --> 00:03:35,491 And I am not minded to be intimidated 66 00:03:35,525 --> 00:03:36,630 by this sort of activity. 67 00:03:41,290 --> 00:03:42,739 - [Sean] I would accept that the fact 68 00:03:42,774 --> 00:03:46,018 that I have been critical about them and some of the truths 69 00:03:46,053 --> 00:03:50,678 that I have told about them would have created 70 00:03:50,713 --> 00:03:52,301 a toxic climate. 71 00:03:55,096 --> 00:03:59,135 If telling the truth is an incitement to hear truth, 72 00:03:59,169 --> 00:03:59,998 then I'm guilty. 73 00:04:03,657 --> 00:04:06,315 [gentle music] 74 00:04:14,115 --> 00:04:17,602 [gentle music continues] 75 00:04:26,127 --> 00:04:28,820 [gentle music] 76 00:04:38,554 --> 00:04:42,903 My father couldn't read nor write, but he was, 77 00:04:42,937 --> 00:04:44,663 he was quite clever. 78 00:04:44,698 --> 00:04:46,665 And he would count money and he would know 79 00:04:46,700 --> 00:04:48,391 a good animal from a bad animal. 80 00:04:50,497 --> 00:04:55,502 He was able to buy a farm in 1950 for 2,000 pounds 81 00:04:56,192 --> 00:04:57,055 and paid cash for it. 82 00:04:59,747 --> 00:05:03,095 There was no telephones, there was no television. 83 00:05:03,130 --> 00:05:05,028 There was no running water. 84 00:05:05,063 --> 00:05:07,583 We didn't have a car, we didn't have a tractor. 85 00:05:07,617 --> 00:05:09,723 We didn't have anything in those early years. 86 00:05:10,862 --> 00:05:12,415 The four of us was born in there. 87 00:05:12,450 --> 00:05:16,074 Myself and Peter, Miriam, and Bernadette, the two sisters. 88 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:18,697 - [Bernie] I was the youngest. 89 00:05:18,732 --> 00:05:20,561 I was the baby and spoiled. 90 00:05:20,596 --> 00:05:22,494 He was the second youngest. 91 00:05:22,529 --> 00:05:24,979 He was the worker, the farmer. 92 00:05:25,014 --> 00:05:27,016 Wasn't interested in going on to higher education 93 00:05:27,050 --> 00:05:28,500 or education of any kind. 94 00:05:28,535 --> 00:05:30,053 The sooner he got out and made a few pound 95 00:05:30,088 --> 00:05:31,020 the better for him. 96 00:05:32,987 --> 00:05:35,783 He just didn't turn up for the bus the day 97 00:05:35,818 --> 00:05:37,578 he was supposed to go to transfer exam. 98 00:05:37,613 --> 00:05:39,649 He wasn't going to go that path. 99 00:05:42,549 --> 00:05:44,827 - I hid in the bushes until I seen the bus 100 00:05:44,861 --> 00:05:46,518 leaving the school 'cause I didn't want to do 101 00:05:46,553 --> 00:05:48,520 the 11-plus and didn't do it. 102 00:05:48,555 --> 00:05:50,867 So when I arrived then the teacher, 103 00:05:50,902 --> 00:05:53,145 she wasn't very happy and where was I? 104 00:05:53,180 --> 00:05:56,597 And when I went home, my mother wasn't very happy, 105 00:05:56,632 --> 00:05:57,840 but my father said, leave him alone. 106 00:05:57,874 --> 00:05:59,186 He'll be all right. 107 00:05:59,220 --> 00:06:00,739 He'll help me with the land, he'll be grand. 108 00:06:00,774 --> 00:06:02,741 So I was the dunce that stayed at home milking the cows. 109 00:06:02,776 --> 00:06:06,227 [gentle music] 110 00:06:07,436 --> 00:06:08,747 - Maybe that was the first insight we got, 111 00:06:08,782 --> 00:06:10,093 that he was his own person and was going 112 00:06:10,128 --> 00:06:11,888 to do his own thing. 113 00:06:11,923 --> 00:06:13,959 The rest of us left home. 114 00:06:13,994 --> 00:06:16,376 Peter would've gone to college and would always have been 115 00:06:16,410 --> 00:06:17,687 a kind of academic. 116 00:06:18,861 --> 00:06:20,103 Miriam, similarly. 117 00:06:21,070 --> 00:06:23,866 [gentle music] 118 00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:25,281 - [Sean] I farmed for a few years 119 00:06:25,315 --> 00:06:27,801 along with my father, poorly. 120 00:06:27,835 --> 00:06:29,837 And then we started to get involved a wee bit 121 00:06:29,872 --> 00:06:33,393 in small contracting as well, making roads 122 00:06:33,427 --> 00:06:36,844 for the tractor and trailer and bought a bailer 123 00:06:36,879 --> 00:06:39,019 and used to bail hay for pay. 124 00:06:40,158 --> 00:06:42,160 I felt that farming wasn't for me. 125 00:06:43,368 --> 00:06:45,888 [gentle music] 126 00:06:48,477 --> 00:06:49,892 There's an old saying in farming, 127 00:06:49,926 --> 00:06:51,411 I think it's a true one. 128 00:06:51,445 --> 00:06:54,068 In farming, you live poor and die rich 129 00:06:54,103 --> 00:06:57,106 because the farms worth a lot for after your day, 130 00:06:57,140 --> 00:06:58,348 but you live poor. 131 00:06:58,383 --> 00:07:00,834 So, I formed that opinion very early on, 132 00:07:00,868 --> 00:07:03,457 rightly or wrongly, maybe as it turned out wrongly. 133 00:07:06,771 --> 00:07:08,082 I suppose I was too greedy. 134 00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:10,464 I was just looking for cash, you know, 135 00:07:10,499 --> 00:07:12,570 all the time and farming was too slow for me. 136 00:07:13,950 --> 00:07:18,645 My father took a massive heart attack in 1967. 137 00:07:18,679 --> 00:07:21,544 The week before Christmas, the 18th of December '67, 138 00:07:21,579 --> 00:07:22,545 he died. 139 00:07:24,098 --> 00:07:25,410 It was a serious shock. 140 00:07:29,414 --> 00:07:32,728 - Before Daddy had died, he had sold a field of sand 141 00:07:32,762 --> 00:07:34,454 or gravel, gravel probably. 142 00:07:34,488 --> 00:07:38,492 And I remember Miriam and I had been out talking to Sean 143 00:07:38,527 --> 00:07:40,460 in the front street when he says, you know, 144 00:07:40,494 --> 00:07:41,840 I'm going to start this. 145 00:07:41,875 --> 00:07:43,083 We kinda looked at him, he says, 146 00:07:43,117 --> 00:07:44,394 "Well, look at it's like this, 147 00:07:44,429 --> 00:07:45,982 if Pat Quarry could buy it off my father 148 00:07:46,017 --> 00:07:47,536 and make money off it," he says, 149 00:07:47,570 --> 00:07:50,297 "why couldn't I if I've got my own sand and gravel?" 150 00:07:52,402 --> 00:07:54,094 - Well then there was McCaffrey admitting they started 151 00:07:54,128 --> 00:07:57,511 in the area as well and they were all quite successful 152 00:07:57,546 --> 00:07:58,995 and they were all good people 153 00:07:59,030 --> 00:08:01,135 and they all run good businesses. 154 00:08:01,170 --> 00:08:03,690 And what they used to do is they used to bring 155 00:08:04,898 --> 00:08:09,419 the gravel to the water by a road. 156 00:08:09,454 --> 00:08:12,940 And of course, I decided I'll bring the water to the gravel 157 00:08:13,941 --> 00:08:16,047 and sunk wells, maybe a hundred foot deep. 158 00:08:18,601 --> 00:08:20,189 [gentle music] 159 00:08:20,223 --> 00:08:21,708 I acquired a wee Bedford Lorry. 160 00:08:21,742 --> 00:08:24,296 It cost 1,800 pounds. 161 00:08:24,331 --> 00:08:28,197 The registration number is A-I-L 8023 162 00:08:28,231 --> 00:08:32,615 and that was bought in the spring of 1973. 163 00:08:35,998 --> 00:08:37,827 - And it mushroomed after that. 164 00:08:37,862 --> 00:08:40,347 Mommy would've taken the phone calls at the end of the table 165 00:08:40,381 --> 00:08:42,970 and I would've gone home at weekends and done the books 166 00:08:43,005 --> 00:08:46,042 of whatever he had done for that particular week 167 00:08:46,077 --> 00:08:49,425 and it just started from that very small, 168 00:08:49,459 --> 00:08:50,633 from the kitchen table. 169 00:08:54,637 --> 00:08:57,985 - I think the first year we made 8,000 pounds in profit 170 00:08:58,020 --> 00:09:00,056 and then the second year it doubled and the third year 171 00:09:00,091 --> 00:09:03,059 it doubled and it kept doubling every year for a few years. 172 00:09:05,579 --> 00:09:06,960 While the profits were very low, 173 00:09:06,994 --> 00:09:10,757 it put in place a mechanism that was gonna change my life. 174 00:09:12,172 --> 00:09:13,622 The family were popular in the area, 175 00:09:13,656 --> 00:09:15,865 I mean, we played football. 176 00:09:15,900 --> 00:09:18,419 - If you're looking at the economy of the border region 177 00:09:18,454 --> 00:09:21,181 in the 70s and 80s, it's a wasteland. 178 00:09:21,215 --> 00:09:24,218 He decided to set up a business and locate it 179 00:09:24,253 --> 00:09:26,082 in his own domain. 180 00:09:26,117 --> 00:09:29,499 Quinn routed his business in his locality. 181 00:09:29,534 --> 00:09:31,881 He had a great sense of place. 182 00:09:31,916 --> 00:09:34,988 He understood the area and he was loyal to it. 183 00:09:35,022 --> 00:09:37,024 Whether it was playing Gaelic football, 184 00:09:37,059 --> 00:09:39,613 whether it was supporting local businesses. 185 00:09:39,648 --> 00:09:42,064 He played that card and he played it very well. 186 00:09:44,135 --> 00:09:46,620 [gentle music] 187 00:09:53,662 --> 00:09:56,665 - The redness of the stone that would be very high 188 00:09:56,699 --> 00:09:57,907 in the iron. 189 00:09:57,942 --> 00:10:00,047 So, it's just a wee bit of a tricky. 190 00:10:00,082 --> 00:10:02,636 The whole mountains a wee bit tricky insofar as you have 191 00:10:02,671 --> 00:10:04,880 to pick out different elements from different parts 192 00:10:04,914 --> 00:10:06,157 of the quarry, you know? 193 00:10:07,537 --> 00:10:09,298 My competitors, they were just doing sand and gravel 194 00:10:09,332 --> 00:10:12,025 and I thought we should widen out beyond that. 195 00:10:12,059 --> 00:10:14,786 So we started making blocks and ready mix concrete. 196 00:10:14,821 --> 00:10:18,100 The gravel in our region was very porous and weakened, 197 00:10:18,134 --> 00:10:19,722 a bit soft. 198 00:10:19,757 --> 00:10:22,138 So I had to start and open a quarry then. 199 00:10:22,173 --> 00:10:24,969 [energetic music] 200 00:10:26,971 --> 00:10:29,352 We've been quarrying there now for 40 years. 201 00:10:29,387 --> 00:10:31,044 I opened that in the late 70s. 202 00:10:32,528 --> 00:10:34,703 So, there's still material being drawn from that 203 00:10:34,737 --> 00:10:36,566 up until this day. 204 00:10:36,601 --> 00:10:39,086 I remember going to the bank man in Cavan, 205 00:10:39,121 --> 00:10:40,709 Bank of Ireland. 206 00:10:40,743 --> 00:10:43,573 He says, you're overdrawn in the bank, you know that. 207 00:10:43,608 --> 00:10:48,164 And I said, "Ah, we are wee bit, but sure we're going 208 00:10:48,199 --> 00:10:49,476 the right direction. 209 00:10:49,510 --> 00:10:50,891 Our profits are increasing all the time." 210 00:10:50,926 --> 00:10:52,652 I looked at him and I said, 211 00:10:52,686 --> 00:10:54,895 "I bought a farm of land yesterday." 212 00:10:54,930 --> 00:10:56,172 "You what," he says. 213 00:10:56,207 --> 00:10:57,898 I said, "I bought a farm of land yesterday." 214 00:10:57,933 --> 00:11:00,383 He says, "Who's going to pay for that?" 215 00:11:00,418 --> 00:11:01,868 And I said, "I don't know." 216 00:11:01,902 --> 00:11:02,696 So... 217 00:11:06,700 --> 00:11:08,529 - [Bernie] I suppose we were all frightened 218 00:11:08,564 --> 00:11:10,290 of the expenditure that was involved in it 219 00:11:10,324 --> 00:11:13,189 because it seemed almost an impossible dream. 220 00:11:15,088 --> 00:11:18,091 Mommy's dead 13 years but if she had seen 221 00:11:18,125 --> 00:11:20,472 what was going to happen, she'd say he's going far too fast. 222 00:11:20,507 --> 00:11:21,784 He's doing far too much. 223 00:11:21,819 --> 00:11:23,096 It'll never work out. 224 00:11:26,237 --> 00:11:27,548 Nobody around would ever have thought 225 00:11:27,583 --> 00:11:29,136 that he was making money, you know 226 00:11:29,171 --> 00:11:31,138 because he was just so relaxed about, 227 00:11:31,173 --> 00:11:33,209 he was still very much part of the community. 228 00:11:33,244 --> 00:11:35,418 He was still out in the football field every evening. 229 00:11:35,453 --> 00:11:38,801 [gentle music] 230 00:11:47,223 --> 00:11:50,986 - [Bryan] When I was very small at midnight mass, 231 00:11:51,020 --> 00:11:54,541 it was the custom that you would put a candle in the window 232 00:11:54,575 --> 00:11:57,233 so that if you looked up at the mountain side, 233 00:11:57,268 --> 00:11:59,201 you would see all the houses lit up. 234 00:12:02,135 --> 00:12:04,240 But as the years went by, one by one, 235 00:12:04,275 --> 00:12:06,449 the candles and the lights went out. 236 00:12:07,865 --> 00:12:10,039 That was it and the mountain was in darkness. 237 00:12:12,973 --> 00:12:17,633 There was a constant, constant drain of immigration. 238 00:12:17,667 --> 00:12:20,187 A whole generation that had gone away 239 00:12:20,222 --> 00:12:22,465 because there was simply no work at all. 240 00:12:25,054 --> 00:12:29,231 And an old man said to me, when Sean Quinn was going well, 241 00:12:29,265 --> 00:12:33,476 he said Quinn put the lights back on, 242 00:12:33,511 --> 00:12:34,857 on the mountain side. 243 00:12:41,726 --> 00:12:44,039 - I never saw a mistake to running a business. 244 00:12:44,073 --> 00:12:46,179 I never saw, I never thought it was difficult 245 00:12:46,213 --> 00:12:47,180 running a business. 246 00:12:47,214 --> 00:12:48,215 Always came easy to me. 247 00:12:49,251 --> 00:12:52,219 [energetic music] 248 00:12:57,638 --> 00:12:59,088 '83 we bought the first pub. 249 00:13:04,024 --> 00:13:05,785 With the five children coming along and that, 250 00:13:05,819 --> 00:13:07,234 I suppose I always wanted to see that they 251 00:13:07,269 --> 00:13:08,684 would all have their own. 252 00:13:08,718 --> 00:13:12,688 And I know that in a lot of businesses, 253 00:13:12,722 --> 00:13:16,588 family rows can have a major effect on the business, 254 00:13:16,623 --> 00:13:18,349 second or third generation. 255 00:13:21,110 --> 00:13:22,836 But having four girls as well, 256 00:13:22,871 --> 00:13:26,322 I thought that pubs might suit them better than quarries 257 00:13:26,357 --> 00:13:28,359 or cement factories and stuff like that. 258 00:13:31,327 --> 00:13:34,675 It was never my idea to go round Ireland or England 259 00:13:34,710 --> 00:13:38,679 or whatever it was and open 20, 30, 40, 50 quarries, 260 00:13:39,888 --> 00:13:41,648 because quarries are very hard to manage. 261 00:13:46,239 --> 00:13:47,723 We bought the pub in Dublin. 262 00:13:48,897 --> 00:13:50,346 It was the year of pub, I think in Dublin 263 00:13:50,381 --> 00:13:52,314 at that time in '83. 264 00:13:52,348 --> 00:13:53,902 And then of course we followed up by more, 265 00:13:53,936 --> 00:13:56,111 I think we had 12 pubs in Dublin 266 00:13:56,145 --> 00:13:58,320 over the following 10 years. 267 00:13:58,354 --> 00:14:00,253 And they turned out to be a great success. 268 00:14:02,807 --> 00:14:04,050 - [Simon] Here was the simple businessman 269 00:14:04,084 --> 00:14:07,294 who'd come to Dublin to go and watch GAA games 270 00:14:07,329 --> 00:14:10,090 in Crow Park and see these pubs like the Cat and Cage 271 00:14:10,125 --> 00:14:11,505 and Drumcondra throwing off cash 272 00:14:11,540 --> 00:14:13,956 and the amount of people spending money in these bars. 273 00:14:13,991 --> 00:14:15,233 And he was a very practical businessman. 274 00:14:15,268 --> 00:14:16,579 He said, I need to get in on this. 275 00:14:16,614 --> 00:14:18,236 This is obviously a very good business. 276 00:14:18,271 --> 00:14:21,239 And I think there was an admiration in Dublin 277 00:14:21,274 --> 00:14:22,965 that he was someone to watch. 278 00:14:25,761 --> 00:14:28,557 [energetic music] 279 00:14:30,076 --> 00:14:33,527 - [Sean] Back in the mid 80s, cement was very hard to get 280 00:14:33,562 --> 00:14:36,254 and all of the quarries were on allocation. 281 00:14:36,289 --> 00:14:38,394 So you had to order it a couple of days in advance 282 00:14:38,429 --> 00:14:40,603 and you make it 50 or 60% of what you want, 283 00:14:40,638 --> 00:14:42,398 what you needed to get. 284 00:14:42,433 --> 00:14:45,401 And we were meeting one day in the Longford Arms 285 00:14:45,436 --> 00:14:49,474 in Longford, and we were all talking, 286 00:14:49,509 --> 00:14:50,751 where can we get cement? 287 00:14:50,786 --> 00:14:53,375 And I didn't even know what cement was made of. 288 00:14:53,409 --> 00:14:55,998 And I said to Bertie Hand who was sitting beside me 289 00:14:56,033 --> 00:14:59,381 and I said to Bertie, "What is cement made of Bertie?" 290 00:15:00,347 --> 00:15:02,660 And he says, "It's made of stone and shite." 291 00:15:03,972 --> 00:15:05,835 And I said, "We have stone and shite." 292 00:15:07,561 --> 00:15:09,529 - He built his business through a combination 293 00:15:09,563 --> 00:15:14,154 of guts, gravel, granite, and genius. 294 00:15:14,189 --> 00:15:15,604 - [Denzil] The reputation for the business did spread 295 00:15:15,638 --> 00:15:16,708 throughout the county and it was, 296 00:15:16,743 --> 00:15:17,951 there was very much a presence. 297 00:15:17,986 --> 00:15:19,332 There was very much an awareness. 298 00:15:19,366 --> 00:15:21,851 And Sean Quinn became Quinn. 299 00:15:23,681 --> 00:15:25,407 - Business creates business. 300 00:15:25,441 --> 00:15:28,962 He created an ecosystem that allowed people who would 301 00:15:28,997 --> 00:15:31,102 otherwise not have been able to get a job, 302 00:15:31,137 --> 00:15:34,623 to get a job, to set up businesses because they knew 303 00:15:34,657 --> 00:15:37,384 that the plants and the machineries would turn off 304 00:15:37,419 --> 00:15:40,146 business and revenues to allow them to thrive. 305 00:15:40,180 --> 00:15:42,838 And I think that's why he had such a level of loyalty 306 00:15:42,872 --> 00:15:44,391 from that area. 307 00:15:44,426 --> 00:15:47,118 They had this one thing up in Cavan and Fermanagh. 308 00:15:47,153 --> 00:15:48,326 They had Quinn. 309 00:15:48,361 --> 00:15:51,812 [ground explodes] 310 00:15:51,847 --> 00:15:53,642 - [Reporter] There's a tile factory that produces 311 00:15:53,676 --> 00:15:55,782 5 million tiles per year. 312 00:15:55,816 --> 00:15:57,991 A block making plant where the output 313 00:15:58,026 --> 00:16:00,166 is 8 million blocks per year. 314 00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:01,891 A new cement plant. 315 00:16:01,926 --> 00:16:05,136 This vast empire is owned by one man. 316 00:16:05,171 --> 00:16:09,002 ♪ Not like anybody else from here ♪ 317 00:16:09,037 --> 00:16:12,592 ♪ Not like anybody else 318 00:16:12,626 --> 00:16:17,631 ♪ I like you I like you I like you ♪ 319 00:16:18,874 --> 00:16:20,427 - Obviously he'd have a lot of these moves made 320 00:16:20,462 --> 00:16:22,809 before we would even know that he was thinking about them. 321 00:16:22,843 --> 00:16:25,191 But I remember he said that, you know, 322 00:16:25,225 --> 00:16:26,433 people were making a lot more money. 323 00:16:26,468 --> 00:16:27,987 They were building better houses, 324 00:16:28,021 --> 00:16:30,748 but there were no leisure facilities for them in the area. 325 00:16:34,096 --> 00:16:36,202 - I got a lot of satisfaction outta building 326 00:16:36,236 --> 00:16:39,067 the Slieve Russell and bringing thousands of people in 327 00:16:39,101 --> 00:16:43,899 every week in and hospitality in a community 328 00:16:43,933 --> 00:16:45,418 that I was born and reared in. 329 00:16:45,452 --> 00:16:47,730 ♪ Like anybody else round here 330 00:16:47,765 --> 00:16:51,182 - Just was a whole new aspect to life for us in Derrylin. 331 00:16:51,217 --> 00:16:53,529 You could go in the evening and after work and you could 332 00:16:53,564 --> 00:16:55,393 bring your children, your families. 333 00:16:55,428 --> 00:16:57,430 It was, it was wonderful. 334 00:16:57,464 --> 00:17:00,053 ♪ Like anybody else 335 00:17:00,088 --> 00:17:02,262 - '89, we opened the first cement factory, 336 00:17:02,297 --> 00:17:03,815 in '99, we opened the second one. 337 00:17:03,850 --> 00:17:05,334 10 years later. 338 00:17:05,369 --> 00:17:07,474 A new factory made three times the amount, 339 00:17:07,509 --> 00:17:09,338 so we tripled the size. 340 00:17:10,650 --> 00:17:11,754 - [Reporter] Tonight, I'm in the border village 341 00:17:11,789 --> 00:17:14,274 of Ballyconnell in county Cavan. 342 00:17:14,309 --> 00:17:17,622 Behind me, the most modern cement factory in Europe, 343 00:17:17,657 --> 00:17:20,867 which when it goes into production in just a few weeks time 344 00:17:20,901 --> 00:17:23,490 from this quiet corner of Ireland will be capable 345 00:17:23,525 --> 00:17:28,185 of producing almost 40% of the country's total cement needs. 346 00:17:30,601 --> 00:17:33,224 - I can see the cement to some extent, 347 00:17:33,259 --> 00:17:36,055 but a glass factory, that was completely off the radar, 348 00:17:36,089 --> 00:17:36,883 wasn't it? 349 00:17:39,092 --> 00:17:41,232 - We built two glass factories in the space of five, 350 00:17:41,267 --> 00:17:44,408 six years and they cost 600 million. 351 00:17:47,618 --> 00:17:49,102 - [Reporter] Do you put a lot of thought 352 00:17:49,137 --> 00:17:51,863 into your investments before you make your final decision? 353 00:17:51,898 --> 00:17:53,900 Or do you move by instinct a lot at the time? 354 00:17:53,934 --> 00:17:55,246 - Mainly by instinct. 355 00:17:55,281 --> 00:17:58,594 If I see something good and I like it, I buy it. 356 00:17:58,629 --> 00:18:01,563 [ground explodes] 357 00:18:03,289 --> 00:18:07,258 - So he says, "What if we have to make an urgent claim?" 358 00:18:07,293 --> 00:18:08,535 Quinn Direct. 359 00:18:08,570 --> 00:18:10,330 - [Announcer] Providing you with the answers. 360 00:18:10,365 --> 00:18:12,781 - [Gavin] He had this massive fleet of trucks on the road 361 00:18:12,815 --> 00:18:15,818 and he said, "I'm paying a fortune for insurance 362 00:18:15,853 --> 00:18:18,062 on my trucks, I'm just gonna do it myself." 363 00:18:18,925 --> 00:18:20,271 Like building the cement plant, 364 00:18:20,306 --> 00:18:21,790 no experience of insurance, 365 00:18:21,824 --> 00:18:24,620 no experience of financial services. 366 00:18:24,655 --> 00:18:27,485 And he launched insurance company. 367 00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:29,142 - So she goes- 368 00:18:29,177 --> 00:18:32,594 - Quinn Direct was the best company ever I started. 369 00:18:32,628 --> 00:18:34,630 Without any shadow of doubt better than glass, 370 00:18:34,665 --> 00:18:36,701 better than cement, better than anything. 371 00:18:36,736 --> 00:18:40,429 What made Quinn successful was my knowledge 372 00:18:40,464 --> 00:18:42,328 of the industry before I went into it. 373 00:18:42,362 --> 00:18:44,433 I would have three or 400 vehicles around the place 374 00:18:44,468 --> 00:18:46,055 and we were paying a very high premium, 375 00:18:46,090 --> 00:18:47,885 millions of pounds a year of premium. 376 00:18:49,611 --> 00:18:51,716 The problem was very simple. 377 00:18:51,751 --> 00:18:55,582 If somebody is injured, that would go from one desk 378 00:18:55,617 --> 00:18:57,722 to another for two or three year. 379 00:18:57,757 --> 00:18:59,655 We knew that every week, every month, 380 00:18:59,690 --> 00:19:00,863 every year that a claim went on 381 00:19:00,898 --> 00:19:02,934 it got more and more expensive. 382 00:19:02,969 --> 00:19:05,868 So the trick was, you have fast track, 383 00:19:05,903 --> 00:19:07,422 so we call it our fast track, 384 00:19:07,456 --> 00:19:09,458 you would try to get rid that in the first two weeks. 385 00:19:09,493 --> 00:19:12,461 Give them whatever money they're entitled to, move on. 386 00:19:12,496 --> 00:19:13,566 People love that. 387 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:17,156 And we could reduce the premium significantly. 388 00:19:19,019 --> 00:19:21,160 - When he bought the Cat and Cage pub in Dublin, 389 00:19:21,194 --> 00:19:25,371 he said you would buy the beer from Diageo or from Heineken 390 00:19:25,405 --> 00:19:30,410 or from whoever on credit 30 or 60 or 90 days credit. 391 00:19:31,722 --> 00:19:33,241 And then everyone would come in on Saturday night 392 00:19:33,275 --> 00:19:34,656 and buy their beer and pay you for it, you know. 393 00:19:34,690 --> 00:19:37,072 So the money came in and it's in your bank account 394 00:19:37,106 --> 00:19:38,591 and you have it. 395 00:19:38,625 --> 00:19:40,040 It's really incredible, incredible cash flow business. 396 00:19:40,075 --> 00:19:43,043 Insurance was like that on steroids. 397 00:19:43,078 --> 00:19:46,392 - I mean that's where this sort of small fortune 398 00:19:46,426 --> 00:19:47,841 turned into a big fortune. 399 00:19:49,257 --> 00:19:50,361 - Quinn Direct was making 200 million pounds 400 00:19:50,396 --> 00:19:51,914 a year of profit. 401 00:19:51,949 --> 00:19:56,402 Quinn Direct was making so much profit that the regulator 402 00:19:56,436 --> 00:19:59,853 in writing would've given us, allowed us for the five years 403 00:19:59,888 --> 00:20:02,925 prior to the crash to take out 800 million pounds 404 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:03,926 of dividends. 405 00:20:03,961 --> 00:20:04,927 It was so profitable. 406 00:20:04,962 --> 00:20:06,412 It was unreal. 407 00:20:06,446 --> 00:20:10,485 - You can see the driving force here at work 408 00:20:10,519 --> 00:20:12,625 and the driving force is greed. 409 00:20:12,659 --> 00:20:13,936 - So I suppose we were making a lot of money 410 00:20:13,971 --> 00:20:17,146 and the question had to be asked was, 411 00:20:17,181 --> 00:20:18,700 "What do we do with this money?" 412 00:20:18,734 --> 00:20:21,461 [gentle music] 413 00:20:24,671 --> 00:20:28,019 - There is a change in Sean Quinn in 2005. 414 00:20:28,054 --> 00:20:30,090 All of the trappings of a billionaire 415 00:20:30,125 --> 00:20:31,885 suddenly start to emerge. 416 00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,682 The mansion overlooking the Slieve of Russell, 417 00:20:35,717 --> 00:20:38,582 the private jet, the trophy assets. 418 00:20:42,379 --> 00:20:46,624 - He bought the Belfry for a massive, you know, 130, 419 00:20:46,659 --> 00:20:49,109 I think 135, 136 million pounds. 420 00:20:50,973 --> 00:20:53,252 That was where it started to get a bit, 421 00:20:53,286 --> 00:20:56,047 for me as a business reporter, it was never really clear. 422 00:20:56,082 --> 00:20:57,186 Did Sean Quinn buy this? 423 00:20:57,221 --> 00:20:58,705 Did the Quinn Group buy this? 424 00:20:58,740 --> 00:21:00,259 Did Quinn Insurance buy this? 425 00:21:02,019 --> 00:21:04,746 - And what he wants to do is to create something 426 00:21:04,780 --> 00:21:08,336 unparalleled in Irish business history. 427 00:21:08,370 --> 00:21:10,614 He wants to create a family of billionaires. 428 00:21:12,340 --> 00:21:15,204 - At this point, the five children already owned the group. 429 00:21:15,239 --> 00:21:16,861 They owned the shares in the group, 430 00:21:16,896 --> 00:21:20,555 but these were private investment portfolios that started 431 00:21:20,589 --> 00:21:22,315 to be built up for the children. 432 00:21:22,350 --> 00:21:24,317 There was very little, if anything, in the names 433 00:21:24,352 --> 00:21:26,112 of Sean Quinn and his wife Patricia. 434 00:21:27,734 --> 00:21:32,118 - What he wants to do is to hand over a property portfolio 435 00:21:32,152 --> 00:21:36,364 of a billion Euro, high returning high yield property 436 00:21:36,398 --> 00:21:38,780 to each of his children. 437 00:21:38,814 --> 00:21:42,784 He wanted a 15% yield and to get that, you have to go east. 438 00:21:44,855 --> 00:21:47,547 [eclectic music] 439 00:21:48,824 --> 00:21:51,586 - That was just the beginning of accumulating a really 440 00:21:51,620 --> 00:21:55,417 eclectic portfolio of really valuable properties. 441 00:22:00,284 --> 00:22:01,803 - [Ian] And it's all been announced that the Quinn Group 442 00:22:01,837 --> 00:22:03,977 have bought this, the Quinn group have bought that, 443 00:22:04,012 --> 00:22:06,532 and the Quinn logo, the Q was put up outside 444 00:22:06,566 --> 00:22:07,740 all of these things. 445 00:22:07,774 --> 00:22:09,328 The Quinn Group didn't own any of them. 446 00:22:09,362 --> 00:22:12,434 They were all bought for the family members. 447 00:22:14,298 --> 00:22:17,025 [crowd applauds] 448 00:22:20,408 --> 00:22:22,375 [group chatters] 449 00:22:22,410 --> 00:22:23,963 - Did these boys bring any whiskey with them? 450 00:22:23,997 --> 00:22:25,136 - They did. 451 00:22:25,171 --> 00:22:28,001 [group chatters] 452 00:22:28,036 --> 00:22:31,384 [group laughs] 453 00:22:31,419 --> 00:22:33,524 - Now, he was game before. - Was he? 454 00:22:33,559 --> 00:22:36,665 - [Sean] I'd been a card player for a long number of years 455 00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:38,805 and then I didn't play any cards maybe 456 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,083 for 20, 25 years there. 457 00:22:41,118 --> 00:22:44,604 And then a couple of neighbors that I had great time for, 458 00:22:44,639 --> 00:22:47,435 but they invited me to start to play cards 459 00:22:47,469 --> 00:22:49,885 back about 15 years ago, whatever. 460 00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:51,680 And we play every Tuesday night. 461 00:22:51,715 --> 00:22:53,441 - Any good ones, Jerry? 462 00:22:53,475 --> 00:22:54,752 - A couple of good ones. 463 00:22:54,787 --> 00:22:56,444 - The value hasn't changed. 464 00:22:56,478 --> 00:23:01,380 We started playing for 50 pence games 15 years ago 465 00:23:02,519 --> 00:23:03,416 and we're still playing for 50 pence games. 466 00:23:03,451 --> 00:23:04,797 - The sharp one's coming now. 467 00:23:07,696 --> 00:23:08,904 - Hasn't changed Tony, has it? 468 00:23:08,939 --> 00:23:10,389 - No, nothing, nothing's changed. 469 00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:14,841 - Winning those games are very important to me. 470 00:23:14,876 --> 00:23:16,084 They have to be won. 471 00:23:16,118 --> 00:23:18,811 We have to, being second is no good. 472 00:23:18,845 --> 00:23:20,640 You have to win, you have to win. 473 00:23:20,675 --> 00:23:22,677 You have to win your 50 pence games. 474 00:23:22,711 --> 00:23:23,505 - Good. 475 00:23:24,817 --> 00:23:29,028 - Quinn is fascinating in that he's absolutely brilliant 476 00:23:29,062 --> 00:23:32,618 at making money, but he makes so much money 477 00:23:32,652 --> 00:23:35,241 that I suppose it's what happens to the ultra, ultra rich, 478 00:23:35,275 --> 00:23:38,037 which is that money ceases to have a connection 479 00:23:38,071 --> 00:23:40,349 to the real things that allowed you to make it 480 00:23:40,384 --> 00:23:43,007 in the first place, the real activities. 481 00:23:43,042 --> 00:23:44,871 And it just becomes almost abstract. 482 00:23:47,874 --> 00:23:49,807 And then you just start thinking about how can the money 483 00:23:49,842 --> 00:23:50,843 make money? 484 00:23:53,846 --> 00:23:57,159 - He diverged from his original thinking in the early years, 485 00:23:57,194 --> 00:24:00,611 which was, you know, you work hard 486 00:24:00,646 --> 00:24:04,235 and it wasn't massively about the accumulation of wealth. 487 00:24:04,270 --> 00:24:08,205 It became at some point more conspicuous. 488 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,796 [gentle music] 489 00:24:14,487 --> 00:24:16,938 He seemed to be enjoying the wealth. 490 00:24:18,491 --> 00:24:21,943 The house was one example, this fabulous lakeside house 491 00:24:21,977 --> 00:24:23,496 beside the Slieve Russell. 492 00:24:23,531 --> 00:24:25,671 I think at nearly 15,000 square feet, 493 00:24:25,705 --> 00:24:29,122 seven bedrooms, parking for nine cars, a swimming pool. 494 00:24:31,124 --> 00:24:33,506 It just didn't seem very Sean Quinn. 495 00:24:36,095 --> 00:24:39,063 The family, I mean they didn't live lavish lifestyles. 496 00:24:39,098 --> 00:24:41,514 Kids went to the normal schools everybody goes to, 497 00:24:41,549 --> 00:24:43,792 but he was certainly always pushing for more. 498 00:24:49,591 --> 00:24:51,973 - The company was being run by Liam McCaffrey, 499 00:24:52,836 --> 00:24:54,423 Dara O'Reilly and Kevin Lunney. 500 00:24:54,458 --> 00:24:56,322 And there's no suggestion that they were going to be usurped 501 00:24:56,356 --> 00:24:57,944 for any top position. 502 00:24:57,979 --> 00:25:01,292 But he was in the background hatching that plan to ensure 503 00:25:01,327 --> 00:25:04,986 that his children would be fabulously wealthy on a scale 504 00:25:05,020 --> 00:25:06,470 never seen in Ireland before. 505 00:25:09,922 --> 00:25:12,718 [gentle music] 506 00:25:14,996 --> 00:25:17,757 - Quinn Group was worth 4.3 billion and showed it was making 507 00:25:17,792 --> 00:25:20,760 four, 500 million pounds a year of profit. 508 00:25:20,795 --> 00:25:23,142 Plus the property, which was 70. 509 00:25:23,176 --> 00:25:25,213 Whereabout India, Russian, and Ukraine, 510 00:25:25,247 --> 00:25:26,939 we'd have had 20 properties. 511 00:25:26,973 --> 00:25:29,493 So it was near or 600 billion a year of profits. 512 00:25:31,460 --> 00:25:35,050 2005, there was a few new directors came on board, 513 00:25:35,085 --> 00:25:38,778 you know, when, and they were absolutely in awe 514 00:25:38,813 --> 00:25:40,193 of the sort of profit we were making. 515 00:25:40,228 --> 00:25:41,781 They just couldn't believe this, 516 00:25:41,816 --> 00:25:44,612 that a small company in the middle of nowhere down 517 00:25:44,646 --> 00:25:47,028 in Derrylin could make half a billion a year of profit. 518 00:25:47,062 --> 00:25:48,857 They just couldn't believe it. 519 00:25:48,892 --> 00:25:51,722 So they started asking me, "Sean, what do you intend to do?" 520 00:25:51,757 --> 00:25:53,724 Or what way are you gonna grow this business? 521 00:25:53,759 --> 00:25:57,797 And I said, "Well, I'm a little concerned about growing 522 00:25:57,832 --> 00:26:00,213 the manufacturing business too much 523 00:26:00,248 --> 00:26:02,561 because we could lose control." 524 00:26:02,595 --> 00:26:04,459 If we open too many more factories 525 00:26:04,493 --> 00:26:07,048 Derrylin gonna lose control so I want to be careful there. 526 00:26:08,428 --> 00:26:11,328 And I said, property is one we would like to be involved in. 527 00:26:12,812 --> 00:26:16,022 So what I said was, my thinking was that we would spend 528 00:26:16,057 --> 00:26:19,854 a third of our surplus cash on manufacturing, 529 00:26:21,062 --> 00:26:23,133 a third of it on property outside of Ireland 530 00:26:24,410 --> 00:26:26,826 and a third of it on blue chip companies 531 00:26:26,861 --> 00:26:27,862 in the stock market. 532 00:26:29,277 --> 00:26:32,004 [gentle music] 533 00:26:36,077 --> 00:26:37,457 - Now, Sean Quinn has been playing the stock market 534 00:26:37,492 --> 00:26:40,633 for years back from, you know, the early 80s, 535 00:26:40,668 --> 00:26:42,462 right through the way he's been buying shares, 536 00:26:42,497 --> 00:26:45,673 be it in futures or ammonia stocks, whatever. 537 00:26:46,915 --> 00:26:50,125 2005, he learns about a contract for difference 538 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,162 and something goes, I really like that 539 00:26:53,681 --> 00:26:56,062 because it allowed him to keep his investments secret. 540 00:26:59,031 --> 00:27:01,205 - Well a contract for difference is effectively a bet 541 00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,415 on the movement of a share price without you actually having 542 00:27:04,450 --> 00:27:05,520 to own the share. 543 00:27:07,039 --> 00:27:10,490 You put down a deposit roughly 20% usually. 544 00:27:10,525 --> 00:27:13,148 If the share price goes up, I get the full benefit of it. 545 00:27:13,183 --> 00:27:15,910 So you could make a lot of money very quickly 546 00:27:15,944 --> 00:27:17,877 in what was a rising market. 547 00:27:17,912 --> 00:27:21,018 Irish stocks were rising and if the market 548 00:27:21,053 --> 00:27:22,848 is constantly rising and you don't need to put down 549 00:27:22,882 --> 00:27:25,816 the full outlay on the value of the stock to invest in it 550 00:27:25,851 --> 00:27:28,094 and to bet on it, of course you're going to do that. 551 00:27:28,129 --> 00:27:30,510 It's a no-brainer while stocks are rising. 552 00:27:35,792 --> 00:27:38,070 - It's a very complex financial instrument. 553 00:27:38,104 --> 00:27:42,108 It's a crude form of speculative gambling. 554 00:27:42,143 --> 00:27:43,178 But Sean Quinn loved it. 555 00:27:48,805 --> 00:27:51,946 - So Sean Quinn was advised by PwC, you know, 556 00:27:51,980 --> 00:27:54,742 took professional advice and on foot of that advice, 557 00:27:54,776 --> 00:27:58,193 a company was set up to make CFD investments on behalf 558 00:27:58,228 --> 00:28:00,161 of Sean Quinn and the Quinn family. 559 00:28:01,749 --> 00:28:04,268 When he started, you know, there were multiple 560 00:28:04,303 --> 00:28:06,270 Irish companies that he was investing in. 561 00:28:06,305 --> 00:28:10,102 Ryanair, Paddy Power and some of the other banks. 562 00:28:10,136 --> 00:28:13,277 He did CFD trades in FBD, which was a rival insurer 563 00:28:13,312 --> 00:28:14,209 to Quinn Insurance. 564 00:28:16,142 --> 00:28:19,732 Unusual, but not red flag stuff. 565 00:28:19,767 --> 00:28:23,011 When that started really to change was within, 566 00:28:24,185 --> 00:28:26,877 certainly within a year, he began to sell out 567 00:28:26,912 --> 00:28:30,294 of all other CFD positions and put all of his money 568 00:28:30,329 --> 00:28:31,917 into Anglo Irish bank. 569 00:28:37,163 --> 00:28:38,371 - [Simon] When the boom hit, it required 570 00:28:38,406 --> 00:28:39,648 a lot of construction. 571 00:28:39,683 --> 00:28:42,203 Anglo was there to be able to step in and say, 572 00:28:42,237 --> 00:28:43,618 we'll give you a loan, no problem. 573 00:28:43,652 --> 00:28:47,208 It was all about finding yes in a loan application. 574 00:28:49,210 --> 00:28:50,901 - You know, I know of one case, 575 00:28:50,936 --> 00:28:54,422 a guy with a business who wanted to borrow 20 million Euro 576 00:28:54,456 --> 00:28:57,390 and Anglo Irish said, no, we will give you 50. 577 00:28:57,425 --> 00:28:58,944 And he said, oh, I don't want 50. 578 00:28:58,978 --> 00:29:00,669 And they said, well then we don't want the business. 579 00:29:02,671 --> 00:29:04,121 - [Ian] At the time everyone was happy. 580 00:29:04,156 --> 00:29:07,918 The bank was turning off massive profits, 581 00:29:07,953 --> 00:29:11,266 its share price was going stratospheric. 582 00:29:11,301 --> 00:29:13,441 - The profits rose to more than a billion at peak. 583 00:29:13,475 --> 00:29:17,479 It was a bank that was firing on all cylinders, 584 00:29:17,514 --> 00:29:19,102 a bank on steroids. 585 00:29:20,620 --> 00:29:23,313 [gentle music] 586 00:29:26,523 --> 00:29:29,215 [crowd cheers] 587 00:29:30,423 --> 00:29:35,049 - So at a point where I think in 2006 there was, 588 00:29:35,083 --> 00:29:37,189 which is now viewed with some hilarity, 589 00:29:37,223 --> 00:29:38,673 there was a report that Anglo Irish Bank 590 00:29:38,707 --> 00:29:40,813 was the best performing bank in the world. 591 00:29:42,884 --> 00:29:46,715 So a CFD is a bet on a share price and Sean Quinn invested, 592 00:29:46,750 --> 00:29:49,442 I think when the Anglo share price was around 11 Euro 593 00:29:49,477 --> 00:29:51,203 in his first investments. 594 00:29:51,237 --> 00:29:53,205 And it went up to 15 euro. 595 00:29:53,239 --> 00:29:55,897 And I think there's a point where he could have cleared, 596 00:29:55,932 --> 00:30:00,005 I think 200 million Euro on this investment. 597 00:30:00,039 --> 00:30:01,316 But he continued to bet. 598 00:30:02,904 --> 00:30:05,424 [gentle music] 599 00:30:10,153 --> 00:30:12,258 - Sean Quinn looked at the Anglo Irish Bank 600 00:30:12,293 --> 00:30:15,917 and saw something that he recognized in himself. 601 00:30:18,299 --> 00:30:22,303 - I had 33 successive years in Greece in profits. 602 00:30:22,337 --> 00:30:24,063 So I just hopped over a great bank. 603 00:30:24,098 --> 00:30:26,686 I thought they were doing all the right things. 604 00:30:30,311 --> 00:30:34,315 - He saw what started off as an outlier in business, 605 00:30:34,349 --> 00:30:36,179 taking on the establishment. 606 00:30:38,112 --> 00:30:40,873 - And I suppose there was a lot in common with myself 607 00:30:40,908 --> 00:30:42,219 as well, you know. 608 00:30:42,254 --> 00:30:44,877 They were ambitious and they were growing fast. 609 00:30:50,124 --> 00:30:51,366 - He looked at the share price, and said, 610 00:30:51,401 --> 00:30:53,644 God, that has gone only in one direction 611 00:30:53,679 --> 00:30:55,163 for the past 10 years. 612 00:30:56,509 --> 00:30:59,374 - Quinn Group at that point was really at its peak, 613 00:30:59,409 --> 00:31:01,790 you know, peak production, peak employment. 614 00:31:01,825 --> 00:31:04,103 The economy was absolutely flying. 615 00:31:04,138 --> 00:31:07,037 And there was an an itch to be scratched for Sean Quinn 616 00:31:07,072 --> 00:31:11,593 in that there was masses of money in this, in the business. 617 00:31:11,628 --> 00:31:15,563 And he was looking for somewhere to put it. 618 00:31:18,014 --> 00:31:20,568 [gentle music] 619 00:31:24,399 --> 00:31:25,814 - [Ian] If you look at the wonderful logic 620 00:31:25,849 --> 00:31:28,369 to Sean Quinn's business, you start off with gravel 621 00:31:28,403 --> 00:31:29,957 and you say, I'll wash it. 622 00:31:29,991 --> 00:31:31,130 That's a better product. 623 00:31:31,165 --> 00:31:32,407 What do you do with gravel? 624 00:31:32,442 --> 00:31:34,375 Well, you can make cement from it. 625 00:31:34,409 --> 00:31:36,066 Great, we're making cement. 626 00:31:36,101 --> 00:31:37,274 What do we do next? 627 00:31:37,309 --> 00:31:38,344 Well, if we're building all these houses, 628 00:31:38,379 --> 00:31:40,312 why don't we put in some glass into them? 629 00:31:40,346 --> 00:31:42,003 Once we're making the glasses for the houses, 630 00:31:42,038 --> 00:31:43,936 why don't we do bottling factories. 631 00:31:43,971 --> 00:31:46,214 I have all these trucks on the road costing me a fortune 632 00:31:46,249 --> 00:31:47,008 in insurance. 633 00:31:47,043 --> 00:31:48,285 What'll I do? 634 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:49,597 I'll set up an insurance business. 635 00:31:49,631 --> 00:31:53,981 It was making four, 500 million Euro a year in profits. 636 00:31:55,223 --> 00:31:56,915 There is an argument, and I do believe it, 637 00:31:56,949 --> 00:31:59,538 that the next logical progression for Quinn's business 638 00:31:59,572 --> 00:32:04,405 empire was to go into banking and to try and do in banking 639 00:32:04,439 --> 00:32:06,752 what he had done in all of the other industries to really 640 00:32:06,786 --> 00:32:09,065 try and take on the establishment. 641 00:32:14,484 --> 00:32:16,313 - [Announcer] But like every bubble, the bubble ended 642 00:32:16,348 --> 00:32:19,316 and now were seeing the downside of that bubble. 643 00:32:19,351 --> 00:32:21,594 - [Reporter] Borrowers saturated the US housing market 644 00:32:21,629 --> 00:32:23,389 taking on enormous mortgages in spite 645 00:32:23,424 --> 00:32:25,322 of poor credit history. 646 00:32:25,357 --> 00:32:29,878 - By 2007, you know, things were starting to go wrong 647 00:32:29,913 --> 00:32:32,364 in the global economy. 648 00:32:33,399 --> 00:32:34,883 - [Reporter] The result was that more Americans 649 00:32:34,918 --> 00:32:37,472 began missing their monthly mortgage payments. 650 00:32:37,507 --> 00:32:39,681 The implications could be profound. 651 00:32:40,924 --> 00:32:43,133 - It started with the mortgages in America, 652 00:32:43,168 --> 00:32:45,239 and I just thought it was a temporary thing. 653 00:32:45,273 --> 00:32:46,619 - We had the credit crunch. 654 00:32:46,654 --> 00:32:50,002 So the amount of money available to banks 655 00:32:50,037 --> 00:32:52,073 internationally really started to contract. 656 00:32:52,108 --> 00:32:55,559 The share price of Anglo Irish Bank and other banks 657 00:32:55,594 --> 00:32:57,216 started to fall back. 658 00:32:57,251 --> 00:33:01,013 So, Sean Quinn had invested at 11, 10 or 11 Euro a share 659 00:33:01,048 --> 00:33:05,466 in Anglo Irish Bank had seen them go up to 15 Euro a share 660 00:33:06,674 --> 00:33:08,676 and then the share price started to fall back. 661 00:33:12,645 --> 00:33:15,476 - Once the shares in Anglo started to come down in value, 662 00:33:16,925 --> 00:33:19,411 I thought they were very cheap because the figures were 663 00:33:19,445 --> 00:33:21,516 still extraordinarily strong. 664 00:33:21,551 --> 00:33:25,106 And even in 2008, they were showing a 40 odd percent 665 00:33:25,141 --> 00:33:28,489 increase in profits from 2007. 666 00:33:28,523 --> 00:33:31,285 And the shares were going down to half of what they were. 667 00:33:31,319 --> 00:33:34,081 So I said, this thing has been overdone. 668 00:33:34,115 --> 00:33:36,497 And we took money out of good share, 669 00:33:36,531 --> 00:33:39,500 good companies and me foolishly, I don't, 670 00:33:39,534 --> 00:33:41,398 I'm blaming nobody else. 671 00:33:41,433 --> 00:33:43,607 I took money outta good companies 672 00:33:43,642 --> 00:33:45,195 and put the money into Anglo. 673 00:33:45,230 --> 00:33:48,060 - [Gavin] He had spent this 35 year career building 674 00:33:48,095 --> 00:33:50,028 this really diversified business. 675 00:33:50,062 --> 00:33:52,961 And he effectively took everything that had been generated 676 00:33:52,996 --> 00:33:56,827 by those companies and invested it all secretly 677 00:33:56,862 --> 00:33:59,382 into a bet on Anglo Irish Bank. 678 00:34:01,073 --> 00:34:03,524 [gentle music] 679 00:34:11,532 --> 00:34:15,053 [gentle music continues] 680 00:34:22,508 --> 00:34:25,270 - All of the dough was thrown into Anglo because we thought 681 00:34:25,304 --> 00:34:27,720 that they were going to have the biggest recovery. 682 00:34:28,997 --> 00:34:31,621 That was the plan at the time. 683 00:34:36,212 --> 00:34:39,180 - There's all these rumors swirling around town 684 00:34:39,215 --> 00:34:41,527 that Sean Quinn, the border billionaire, 685 00:34:41,562 --> 00:34:44,358 the 177th richest man in the world, 686 00:34:44,392 --> 00:34:47,119 has quietly been amassing a significant stake 687 00:34:47,154 --> 00:34:48,603 in the Anglo Irish bank. 688 00:34:50,122 --> 00:34:51,399 - Nobody is quite sure of the amount. 689 00:34:51,434 --> 00:34:53,608 There is rumors of 3% of 5%. 690 00:34:53,643 --> 00:34:56,024 And bear in mind that if an investor owns 691 00:34:56,059 --> 00:34:58,199 a direct shareholding of 3% in a company, 692 00:34:58,234 --> 00:35:00,615 they must declare it to the stock market. 693 00:35:00,650 --> 00:35:03,515 They must let the market know their interest 694 00:35:03,549 --> 00:35:04,619 in that particular stock. 695 00:35:09,590 --> 00:35:11,143 - He used loads of different brokers 696 00:35:11,178 --> 00:35:12,903 to buy Anglo CFD shares. 697 00:35:12,938 --> 00:35:16,804 So nobody knew, beyond himself, and one or two people 698 00:35:16,838 --> 00:35:19,979 in Derrylin, Liam McCaffrey and Kevin Lunney, 699 00:35:20,014 --> 00:35:22,637 just how much of the bank he actually owned. 700 00:35:24,984 --> 00:35:27,159 - [Sean] I forget whether we made contact with Anglo 701 00:35:27,194 --> 00:35:28,816 or Anglo made contact with us. 702 00:35:28,850 --> 00:35:31,577 Well, I know we welcomed the meeting because at the time 703 00:35:31,612 --> 00:35:33,579 Anglo shares had started to fall. 704 00:35:35,202 --> 00:35:37,997 I wanted to meet the two men that counted, the chairman 705 00:35:38,032 --> 00:35:39,792 and chief executive to say, "Look, 706 00:35:39,827 --> 00:35:41,587 we're big shareholders here. 707 00:35:41,622 --> 00:35:43,279 We want to know what the story is." 708 00:35:44,625 --> 00:35:46,558 - Sean Fitzpatrick and David Drumm had been in London 709 00:35:46,592 --> 00:35:48,801 the night before in an investor meeting. 710 00:35:48,836 --> 00:35:51,563 One of these great corporate gigs that went on 711 00:35:51,597 --> 00:35:53,530 in Celtic Tiger Ireland where as a guest speaker 712 00:35:53,565 --> 00:35:57,189 they had former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev speaking. 713 00:35:57,224 --> 00:36:01,228 And from the Gorbachev meeting, they went to meet Sean Quinn 714 00:36:01,262 --> 00:36:02,470 at the Ardboyne Hotel. 715 00:36:06,647 --> 00:36:09,477 - Sean Quinn is flanked by Liam McCaffrey, 716 00:36:09,512 --> 00:36:11,790 his longtime lieutenant and the chief executive 717 00:36:11,824 --> 00:36:13,412 of the Quinn Group. 718 00:36:13,447 --> 00:36:17,244 David Drumm goes with Sean Fitzpatrick, chairman and CEO. 719 00:36:18,590 --> 00:36:22,041 - This share price is going, is falling very, very fast 720 00:36:22,076 --> 00:36:23,698 and we want to know where we are. 721 00:36:23,733 --> 00:36:25,666 Do we sell the shares or is the company going 722 00:36:25,700 --> 00:36:27,357 to be profitable or what's the story? 723 00:36:27,392 --> 00:36:29,221 And they said, Sean, the company never went better. 724 00:36:29,256 --> 00:36:31,465 The company's actually flying, but we're showing 30, 725 00:36:31,499 --> 00:36:33,501 40% increase in profits. 726 00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:35,779 - [Ian] Sean Fitzpatrick and David Drumm 727 00:36:35,814 --> 00:36:37,367 are in salesman mode. 728 00:36:37,402 --> 00:36:38,713 They're not going to go down and say, actually, 729 00:36:38,748 --> 00:36:40,784 we're really worried about our potential exposure 730 00:36:40,819 --> 00:36:42,648 to land banks in Mullingar. 731 00:36:44,616 --> 00:36:46,480 In the back of their mind, they're saying, 732 00:36:46,514 --> 00:36:49,310 we think this guy owns maybe 10, 11, 733 00:36:49,345 --> 00:36:51,657 12% of the bank through CFDs. 734 00:36:51,692 --> 00:36:54,729 So they had factored into their head, it's a hefty stake. 735 00:36:54,764 --> 00:36:56,628 It's not declared to the market. 736 00:36:56,662 --> 00:36:58,423 And it puts him on the hook for an awful lot of money 737 00:36:58,457 --> 00:36:59,941 if the share price goes down. 738 00:36:59,976 --> 00:37:02,668 But it also raises the not unrealistic prospect 739 00:37:02,703 --> 00:37:05,568 that he might be simply making a play for the bank itself. 740 00:37:08,778 --> 00:37:10,089 And then the question comes. 741 00:37:12,299 --> 00:37:13,645 "How much do you own?" 742 00:37:15,681 --> 00:37:17,683 "25%." 743 00:37:23,448 --> 00:37:26,485 - Sean Quinn invested everything that had been generated 744 00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,626 into a bet on Anglo Irish Bank. 745 00:37:29,661 --> 00:37:32,871 Only the sort of core group of Sean Quinn, 746 00:37:32,905 --> 00:37:35,701 Kevin Lunney and Dara O'Reilly and Liam McCaffrey 747 00:37:35,736 --> 00:37:39,912 I think had the full picture of what 748 00:37:39,947 --> 00:37:41,742 was being invested and where. 749 00:37:44,331 --> 00:37:45,746 - [Sean] Other people in the office would've known 750 00:37:45,780 --> 00:37:47,195 we shouldn't have been doing it. 751 00:37:47,230 --> 00:37:50,682 I suppose it just sort of happened. 752 00:37:50,716 --> 00:37:55,134 And again, maybe our system was a bit weak 753 00:37:55,169 --> 00:37:58,310 and maybe we didn't have enough people 754 00:37:58,345 --> 00:37:59,863 just looking over this thing. 755 00:37:59,898 --> 00:38:02,728 And maybe I was too dominant a factor in this. 756 00:38:02,763 --> 00:38:05,386 And I suppose when I asked it to be done, it was done. 757 00:38:10,978 --> 00:38:13,394 - When it ultimately came to light 758 00:38:13,429 --> 00:38:16,224 and when it ultimately came to, became public, 759 00:38:16,259 --> 00:38:21,264 it was over 25% of Anglo Irish Bank that was being held 760 00:38:22,748 --> 00:38:24,543 in the CFD products by Sean Quinn, the equivalent 761 00:38:24,578 --> 00:38:27,926 of more than a quarter of the trailing of the bank. 762 00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,309 To put that in perspective, if you had owned 29.9% 763 00:38:31,343 --> 00:38:32,758 of the bank, he would've had to make a bid 764 00:38:32,793 --> 00:38:33,932 to buy the bank outright. 765 00:38:35,382 --> 00:38:39,696 - I don't know if the word shocked, right but surprised. 766 00:38:39,731 --> 00:38:43,355 They'd say, "Look at Sean, we're disappointed at the level 767 00:38:43,390 --> 00:38:46,910 of your CFDs and could we get some agreement 768 00:38:46,945 --> 00:38:48,740 that you might dispose of those?" 769 00:38:48,774 --> 00:38:51,570 And I said, surely if you just want me to dispose of those 770 00:38:51,605 --> 00:38:54,366 whenever the share recovers, I'd be more than happy 771 00:38:54,401 --> 00:38:55,367 to do that. 772 00:38:55,402 --> 00:38:56,713 And they seemed happy with that. 773 00:38:56,748 --> 00:39:01,649 And at the time, they seemed genuine in the fact 774 00:39:02,581 --> 00:39:06,378 that the company would grow again 775 00:39:06,413 --> 00:39:08,863 and the share price will recover. 776 00:39:08,898 --> 00:39:10,244 I don't think they were telling me lies. 777 00:39:10,278 --> 00:39:11,418 I think they did believe it. 778 00:39:11,452 --> 00:39:12,280 Diamonds. 779 00:39:13,661 --> 00:39:16,354 [group chatters] 780 00:39:17,769 --> 00:39:20,461 - [Ian] I think there was a feeling from Sean Quinn 781 00:39:20,496 --> 00:39:24,431 that they would be pleased that he was investing 782 00:39:24,465 --> 00:39:27,399 and supporting the bank and supporting its share price. 783 00:39:27,434 --> 00:39:29,815 Oh, it's okay, Sean Quinn, one of the biggest employers 784 00:39:29,850 --> 00:39:32,473 in the country with this amazing manufacturing business 785 00:39:32,508 --> 00:39:33,888 is on our side. 786 00:39:33,923 --> 00:39:37,685 They immediately identified this as a massive problem. 787 00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:38,824 - He goes out. 788 00:39:38,859 --> 00:39:40,378 - Yep. 789 00:39:40,412 --> 00:39:43,035 Stay in Mexico while you still can. 790 00:39:43,070 --> 00:39:45,279 [group laughs] 791 00:39:45,313 --> 00:39:48,420 - But they had to keep him alive 'cause if Sean Quinn 792 00:39:48,455 --> 00:39:50,733 wasn't alive, Anglo was dead. 793 00:39:54,461 --> 00:39:57,843 They also say, stop buying more. 794 00:39:57,878 --> 00:39:59,120 Don't increase it. 795 00:39:59,155 --> 00:40:03,262 This is a big, big play on the bank. 796 00:40:03,297 --> 00:40:07,025 So they go back, they report to the board, say, 797 00:40:07,059 --> 00:40:09,268 "We've told him not to buy anymore." 798 00:40:09,303 --> 00:40:10,822 What does Sean Quinn do? 799 00:40:10,856 --> 00:40:11,857 He buys more. 800 00:40:14,515 --> 00:40:15,447 - [Sean] That was wrong. 801 00:40:15,482 --> 00:40:16,483 I shouldn't have done that. 802 00:40:18,864 --> 00:40:20,487 There's no, there was no excuse for that. 803 00:40:20,521 --> 00:40:22,627 It was stupid to increase it at all, I accept that. 804 00:40:22,661 --> 00:40:24,214 We shouldn't have bought any more shares. 805 00:40:24,249 --> 00:40:27,286 But we bought some more shares, but not very many. 806 00:40:28,736 --> 00:40:32,360 - He really believed everything that had been said and told, 807 00:40:32,395 --> 00:40:34,811 you know, about Anglo Irish Bank. 808 00:40:34,846 --> 00:40:36,054 So when the shares were falling, 809 00:40:36,088 --> 00:40:38,643 he thought the shares are cheaper now, 810 00:40:38,677 --> 00:40:40,645 I'm gonna buy some more. 811 00:40:40,679 --> 00:40:42,612 [group laughs] 812 00:40:42,647 --> 00:40:44,234 I'm not a psychologist, but you know, 813 00:40:44,269 --> 00:40:47,928 classic sort of gambler behavior that maybe we can recoup 814 00:40:47,962 --> 00:40:48,722 some of this. 815 00:40:51,483 --> 00:40:54,900 - I was confident going home that yes, 816 00:40:54,935 --> 00:40:57,075 this bank's going to be successful and this share 817 00:40:57,109 --> 00:40:58,110 is going to recover. 818 00:41:07,361 --> 00:41:09,950 [intense music] 819 00:41:15,231 --> 00:41:16,922 - In the early stages of 2008, 820 00:41:16,957 --> 00:41:18,855 there was this kind of frenzy in the global 821 00:41:18,890 --> 00:41:20,167 financial markets. 822 00:41:20,201 --> 00:41:22,065 Banks were scrambling to get money together. 823 00:41:22,100 --> 00:41:23,550 So investors were looking at, well, 824 00:41:23,584 --> 00:41:26,553 which are the most vulnerable financial institutions. 825 00:41:26,587 --> 00:41:28,900 And on St. Patrick's Day, the market starts turning 826 00:41:28,934 --> 00:41:31,040 its attention to Ireland. 827 00:41:32,524 --> 00:41:36,528 - Welcome to a special St. Patrick's Day 61 News and Sport. 828 00:41:36,563 --> 00:41:39,773 The Irish market was down with bank shares worst hit. 829 00:41:42,327 --> 00:41:44,674 - St. Patrick's Day massacre as it's called, 830 00:41:44,709 --> 00:41:48,851 and share prices of banks all over the world tanked. 831 00:41:52,579 --> 00:41:55,029 [crowd shouts] 832 00:41:56,755 --> 00:42:00,587 - Anglo was in the crosshairs and the investors turned 833 00:42:00,621 --> 00:42:01,519 on Anglo Irish bank. 834 00:42:03,728 --> 00:42:07,835 - What we didn't know at the time publicly was how deep 835 00:42:07,870 --> 00:42:10,355 in the hole Sean Quinn was or how deep 836 00:42:10,389 --> 00:42:11,839 in the hole Anglo was. 837 00:42:11,874 --> 00:42:14,980 That all had yet to play out. 838 00:42:15,015 --> 00:42:17,949 But definitely thought it was the point of no return. 839 00:42:21,469 --> 00:42:24,818 The issue with CFD investment party Sean Quinn was using 840 00:42:24,852 --> 00:42:27,821 was as the share price goes down, 841 00:42:27,855 --> 00:42:30,478 you have to put up money to cover your losses. 842 00:42:30,513 --> 00:42:34,586 The brokers who had sold Sean Quinn then began to make 843 00:42:34,621 --> 00:42:36,070 what's called margin calls. 844 00:42:41,420 --> 00:42:43,768 - As the share price falls, there's an automatic call, 845 00:42:43,802 --> 00:42:45,770 it clocks up on somebody's screen. 846 00:42:45,804 --> 00:42:47,703 You need to get more money off this guy. 847 00:42:51,051 --> 00:42:53,432 - A margin call is the amount that the share price 848 00:42:53,467 --> 00:42:54,882 has gone down. 849 00:42:54,917 --> 00:42:55,987 And because you haven't bought the share, 850 00:42:56,021 --> 00:42:58,541 you have to fund this every single day. 851 00:43:00,508 --> 00:43:02,890 - To cover the losses that you've made, 852 00:43:02,925 --> 00:43:06,791 you need to provide us 50 million, 100 million, 853 00:43:06,825 --> 00:43:07,826 200 million. 854 00:43:15,109 --> 00:43:18,078 - Sean Quinn had money, yeah, he had lots of money, 855 00:43:18,112 --> 00:43:21,702 but you can only fund margin calls outta cash for so long 856 00:43:21,737 --> 00:43:23,842 and within a couple of months he was running shy 857 00:43:23,877 --> 00:43:25,913 of the reservoir of cash. 858 00:43:30,262 --> 00:43:33,093 - One of the most striking figures for me in all of this 859 00:43:33,127 --> 00:43:35,543 to meet the initial cash calls, Sean Quinn, 860 00:43:35,578 --> 00:43:40,134 the Quinn family, the Quinn Group put up 750 million Euro 861 00:43:40,169 --> 00:43:44,622 of actual cash resources from the group 862 00:43:44,656 --> 00:43:46,037 to meet the initial calls. 863 00:43:50,144 --> 00:43:53,423 - One of the most cash rich reserves was the equity 864 00:43:53,458 --> 00:43:55,494 that he had in Quinn Insurance. 865 00:43:55,529 --> 00:43:58,877 Insurance companies are regulated and obliged 866 00:43:58,912 --> 00:44:02,122 to have certain amounts of equity and cash 867 00:44:02,156 --> 00:44:03,468 on their balance sheet. 868 00:44:03,502 --> 00:44:06,160 And so he saw opportunities dip into that to cover 869 00:44:06,195 --> 00:44:07,679 some of those margin calls. 870 00:44:09,094 --> 00:44:12,477 - But you can't do that in a regulated entity. 871 00:44:13,340 --> 00:44:15,376 You can't dip in to the money. 872 00:44:18,103 --> 00:44:21,175 - And all this time, Sean Quinn felt as, 873 00:44:21,210 --> 00:44:22,590 this will get better soon. 874 00:44:26,111 --> 00:44:27,941 - He had dipped into the insurance company. 875 00:44:27,975 --> 00:44:30,702 He had used up whatever personal resources he could, 876 00:44:30,737 --> 00:44:33,118 but at this point he has to go to Anglo Irish Bank 877 00:44:33,153 --> 00:44:36,501 and ask them for money and the bank doesn't have a choice. 878 00:44:41,333 --> 00:44:44,198 - They recognized that there was a major problem here 879 00:44:44,233 --> 00:44:46,580 and the only way to deal with it was to lend more money 880 00:44:46,614 --> 00:44:48,168 to Sean Quinn. 881 00:44:48,202 --> 00:44:50,308 And they took security in some of his properties. 882 00:44:54,243 --> 00:44:56,107 - We've lost 60 million today. 883 00:44:56,141 --> 00:44:57,522 We've lost 20 million today. 884 00:44:57,556 --> 00:45:00,698 We've lost 100 million today and day after day, 885 00:45:00,732 --> 00:45:03,148 Anglo Irish bank would have to give that money over. 886 00:45:07,118 --> 00:45:09,499 - Talking in the order of about 400 million 887 00:45:09,534 --> 00:45:10,984 over the course of March. 888 00:45:11,018 --> 00:45:13,641 Extraordinary sums of money having to be drawn 889 00:45:13,676 --> 00:45:15,160 to make these margin calls. 890 00:45:17,404 --> 00:45:20,200 - Loans began to be made through various Quinn companies 891 00:45:20,234 --> 00:45:23,168 to Sean Quinn in a number that would eventually 892 00:45:23,203 --> 00:45:25,964 amount to 2.8 billion Euro. 893 00:45:28,829 --> 00:45:31,659 - Nobody knows this is going on. 894 00:45:31,694 --> 00:45:35,525 Most of the loans are simply dressed up as working capital 895 00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,943 for the Quinn Group or property related lending. 896 00:45:48,711 --> 00:45:51,300 [gentle music] 897 00:45:52,819 --> 00:45:54,234 - [Interviewer] When you started to take money out 898 00:45:54,268 --> 00:45:56,443 of the insurance business in order to to cover the CFDs, 899 00:45:56,477 --> 00:45:58,928 that was the risk that you took with that business. 900 00:45:58,963 --> 00:46:00,792 - That was wrong, I shouldn't have done that. 901 00:46:00,827 --> 00:46:02,069 That was wrong. 902 00:46:02,104 --> 00:46:03,830 That was, I put my hands up completely on that. 903 00:46:05,176 --> 00:46:08,627 - During that period, the bank was working on possibilities 904 00:46:08,662 --> 00:46:12,770 to try and unwind, as they say, Sean Quinn's position 905 00:46:12,804 --> 00:46:15,289 to get an investor in to buy some of the shares. 906 00:46:16,981 --> 00:46:19,259 - The trouble is the news just keeps on getting 907 00:46:19,293 --> 00:46:21,295 worse and worse. 908 00:46:21,330 --> 00:46:24,367 - [Reporter] Lehman Brothers, a 158 year old firm 909 00:46:24,402 --> 00:46:25,817 filed for bankruptcy. 910 00:46:25,852 --> 00:46:27,198 - [Reporter 2] The collapse of Lehman Brothers 911 00:46:27,232 --> 00:46:30,097 triggered turmoil in markets around the globe. 912 00:46:31,271 --> 00:46:33,273 - Sent the financial markets across the world 913 00:46:33,307 --> 00:46:34,136 into a tailspin. 914 00:46:35,758 --> 00:46:38,899 And a lot of focus was on Anglo Irish Bank. 915 00:46:38,934 --> 00:46:40,728 Not so much because it's funding issues, 916 00:46:40,763 --> 00:46:43,317 but because there were questions now around 917 00:46:43,352 --> 00:46:46,217 just how heavily they had lent into the property market. 918 00:46:47,874 --> 00:46:50,911 - The state's looking at this basket case of a bank 919 00:46:50,946 --> 00:46:53,224 and saying, what are we going to do with it? 920 00:46:55,329 --> 00:46:58,298 - So in January, 2009, it was announced the government 921 00:46:58,332 --> 00:46:59,851 was nationalizing Anglo. 922 00:47:02,336 --> 00:47:04,614 - Within the past hour, the government has announced 923 00:47:04,649 --> 00:47:07,445 that Anglo Irish Bank is to be nationalized. 924 00:47:07,479 --> 00:47:10,034 The minister, Brian Lenihan said it would be taken 925 00:47:10,068 --> 00:47:12,036 into full public ownership. 926 00:47:12,070 --> 00:47:14,659 He said unacceptable practices within the bank 927 00:47:14,693 --> 00:47:16,557 had caused it serious damage. 928 00:47:20,561 --> 00:47:22,218 - The shares of Anglo would no longer be 929 00:47:22,253 --> 00:47:24,117 on the stock exchange. 930 00:47:24,151 --> 00:47:25,670 They would be worthless. 931 00:47:30,502 --> 00:47:34,955 - And sitting up in Cavan is Sean Quinn nursing 932 00:47:34,990 --> 00:47:38,372 one of the biggest financial losses in Irish history. 933 00:47:45,759 --> 00:47:48,279 - Sean Quinn didn't bring down Anglo Irish Bank. 934 00:47:48,313 --> 00:47:52,110 Anglo Irish Bank was doomed to fail. 935 00:47:52,145 --> 00:47:55,873 You know, it was a Ponzi scheme, it was gonna collapse. 936 00:47:57,322 --> 00:48:00,878 However, Sean Quinn's not blameless either, you know. 937 00:48:00,912 --> 00:48:03,259 - [Alan] He's not the only businessman who gambled. 938 00:48:03,294 --> 00:48:06,780 A lot of the major property developers gambled. 939 00:48:06,814 --> 00:48:09,576 But there's a difference between that kind of gambling, 940 00:48:09,610 --> 00:48:11,578 which is gambling on your judgment of what's gonna happen 941 00:48:11,612 --> 00:48:15,133 to the market and gambling on contracts for difference 942 00:48:15,168 --> 00:48:18,171 when the share that you're gambling on is tanking 943 00:48:18,205 --> 00:48:19,827 when you continue gambling in it. 944 00:48:23,417 --> 00:48:25,385 It's a mentality that I think 945 00:48:25,419 --> 00:48:27,318 is ultimately self-destructive. 946 00:48:30,252 --> 00:48:34,359 - This gamble on Anglo through CFDs had just gone 947 00:48:34,394 --> 00:48:36,741 spectacularly, like incredibly wrong. 948 00:48:40,193 --> 00:48:42,643 The family owed 2.8 billion, 949 00:48:43,851 --> 00:48:45,646 but they now owed it to the state. 950 00:48:50,962 --> 00:48:53,551 [upbeat music] 951 00:48:55,794 --> 00:48:57,210 - When the government nationalized 952 00:48:57,244 --> 00:48:59,350 and took controlling stakes of all of the banks, 953 00:48:59,384 --> 00:49:01,697 they wanted to put their own people on the boards. 954 00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:07,530 Alan Dukes, a former Fine Gael leader 955 00:49:07,565 --> 00:49:09,947 and a former minister for finance, was appointed 956 00:49:09,981 --> 00:49:11,500 to the board of Anglo Irish Bank. 957 00:49:12,673 --> 00:49:17,506 - One of the things that we made sure we kept 958 00:49:19,025 --> 00:49:21,372 under the spotlight of the board was the situation 959 00:49:21,406 --> 00:49:24,996 of the largest borrowers from the bank. 960 00:49:25,031 --> 00:49:27,585 And you know, Sean Quinn was one of the big ones. 961 00:49:29,311 --> 00:49:31,589 - And he had done for the previous 35, 40 years, I suppose, 962 00:49:31,623 --> 00:49:33,142 turned out to be successful. 963 00:49:33,177 --> 00:49:35,489 And any wee hiccups we had were always ironed out 964 00:49:35,524 --> 00:49:37,457 over a six, 12 month period. 965 00:49:37,491 --> 00:49:39,631 And I didn't see it any different than that. 966 00:49:39,666 --> 00:49:44,257 I didn't see this crash of 2007, 2008. 967 00:49:44,291 --> 00:49:46,224 I didn't see it any different, you know. 968 00:49:48,468 --> 00:49:51,712 - After the management of Anglo, Sean Fitzpatrick 969 00:49:51,747 --> 00:49:53,991 and David Drumm had been cleared out. 970 00:49:54,025 --> 00:49:56,476 - Do you have a message for the taxpayers, Mr. Drumm? 971 00:49:56,510 --> 00:49:58,754 - They needed to bring in bankers to run it. 972 00:49:59,927 --> 00:50:02,309 Mike Ainsley, he was Australian, he was tough 973 00:50:02,344 --> 00:50:04,415 and he had done this sort of work in Australia 974 00:50:04,449 --> 00:50:06,072 and Japan and around the world. 975 00:50:06,106 --> 00:50:08,074 And he came in as the new chief executive 976 00:50:08,108 --> 00:50:10,800 of Anglo Irish Bank. 977 00:50:10,835 --> 00:50:12,423 He needed people who he trusted 978 00:50:12,457 --> 00:50:14,321 and that means he brought in people who he knew. 979 00:50:14,356 --> 00:50:16,634 So he brought in Richard Woodhouse. 980 00:50:16,668 --> 00:50:20,534 The first time Richard Woodhouse goes up to Cavan, 981 00:50:20,569 --> 00:50:23,399 sits down with Sean Quinn and the staff canteen, 982 00:50:23,434 --> 00:50:24,676 it's all fine. 983 00:50:24,711 --> 00:50:27,127 They shake hands, they have a spot of tea, 984 00:50:27,162 --> 00:50:28,301 they have a sandwich. 985 00:50:30,751 --> 00:50:33,754 - I said, "Well what we can do is we'll pay you back 986 00:50:33,789 --> 00:50:35,308 this money reasonably quickly. 987 00:50:35,342 --> 00:50:37,827 We'll have it all paid back in less than 10 years." 988 00:50:37,862 --> 00:50:40,865 Sure everybody knows the Quinn Group's a huge success story. 989 00:50:40,899 --> 00:50:42,832 - And they agree, oh it'll be great, we'll work together. 990 00:50:42,867 --> 00:50:44,179 We'll sort all of this out. 991 00:50:45,525 --> 00:50:47,561 - Oh, he wanted to do a deal, but he wanted to do it 992 00:50:47,596 --> 00:50:51,220 on his terms and he wanted to do it on the basis 993 00:50:51,255 --> 00:50:53,947 of a financial plan that said, 994 00:50:53,981 --> 00:50:58,538 if we would just lend a further 600 million Euro 995 00:50:58,572 --> 00:51:01,265 with him still in control, that the companies 996 00:51:01,299 --> 00:51:03,336 would work themselves out of the problem. 997 00:51:05,683 --> 00:51:08,513 - They weren't very impressed with my attitude. 998 00:51:08,548 --> 00:51:11,551 I certainly wasn't overly impressed with their attitude. 999 00:51:11,585 --> 00:51:14,623 So we didn't gel that well together. 1000 00:51:16,383 --> 00:51:18,592 - This was a person who had achieved 1001 00:51:18,627 --> 00:51:23,010 some very significant things, but there was a piece of him 1002 00:51:23,045 --> 00:51:26,083 that just didn't understand the ramifications 1003 00:51:26,117 --> 00:51:27,532 of what he had done. 1004 00:51:29,362 --> 00:51:33,918 - It never occurred to us that anybody wrongly, 1005 00:51:33,952 --> 00:51:36,990 it never occurred to us that anybody was going to take this 1006 00:51:37,024 --> 00:51:40,614 draconian action to try to break up the Quinn Group, 1007 00:51:40,649 --> 00:51:43,617 take it away, and destroy it and take it out of my control. 1008 00:51:45,447 --> 00:51:47,932 - 2009, the financial regulator are becoming 1009 00:51:47,966 --> 00:51:50,452 increasingly worried about Quinn Insurance. 1010 00:51:52,178 --> 00:51:54,628 They were worried about the companies reserving, 1011 00:51:54,663 --> 00:51:57,493 policies, how much it was putting aside for claims. 1012 00:51:57,528 --> 00:52:00,738 But they were also very worried that assets that sat 1013 00:52:00,772 --> 00:52:02,843 on the Quinn balance sheet of Quinn Insurance 1014 00:52:02,878 --> 00:52:06,226 had been pledged to the Quinn group so that they could 1015 00:52:06,261 --> 00:52:08,746 in turn be pledged to Anglo Irish Bank. 1016 00:52:08,780 --> 00:52:09,850 'Cause Anglo needed security for all the money 1017 00:52:09,885 --> 00:52:11,093 it was handing over. 1018 00:52:15,028 --> 00:52:18,583 - We were saying there is no guarantees given. 1019 00:52:18,618 --> 00:52:20,447 Guarantees are not given. 1020 00:52:20,482 --> 00:52:22,139 Then some, Liam McCaffrey or somebody says, 1021 00:52:22,173 --> 00:52:23,174 "Oh, there is guarantees given. 1022 00:52:24,210 --> 00:52:25,038 Who gives them?" 1023 00:52:26,626 --> 00:52:28,662 "Meself and Kevin Lunney give them. 1024 00:52:30,285 --> 00:52:31,527 "How does that happen?" 1025 00:52:31,562 --> 00:52:32,563 Mistake. 1026 00:52:32,597 --> 00:52:33,736 We know that it was illegal. 1027 00:52:33,771 --> 00:52:35,048 He can't be given a guarantee. 1028 00:52:35,082 --> 00:52:36,601 He can't be given on a [indistinct]. 1029 00:52:37,602 --> 00:52:38,672 I said, yeah, we'll have to check that out 1030 00:52:38,707 --> 00:52:40,087 we'll have to blah, blah, blah. 1031 00:52:42,435 --> 00:52:46,404 - So he says, "What if we have to make an urgent claim?" 1032 00:52:46,439 --> 00:52:47,233 "Quinn direct." 1033 00:52:50,236 --> 00:52:51,789 - Sean Quinn has a different view, 1034 00:52:51,823 --> 00:52:54,378 but certainly the actuaries, 1035 00:52:54,412 --> 00:52:56,380 the government, the central bank, 1036 00:52:56,414 --> 00:52:58,071 the joint administrators have all come 1037 00:52:58,105 --> 00:53:01,902 to a very singular view that the company was chronically 1038 00:53:01,937 --> 00:53:05,423 under reserving and as a result was throwing off 1039 00:53:05,458 --> 00:53:06,666 massive profits. 1040 00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:08,185 But those profits weren't real. 1041 00:53:09,910 --> 00:53:12,499 - In 2008, at the height of the crash and at the height 1042 00:53:12,534 --> 00:53:14,984 of the share dealings in Anglo, 1043 00:53:15,019 --> 00:53:19,610 we'd have 580 million of cash and reserves in Quinn Direct. 1044 00:53:19,644 --> 00:53:24,235 Two years later, we had 1.1 billion of cash reserve. 1045 00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:30,690 - The regulator came to the conclusion that Quinn Insurance 1046 00:53:31,518 --> 00:53:32,623 was not being properly managed. 1047 00:53:35,039 --> 00:53:36,627 - Sean Quinn had to be taken out. 1048 00:53:38,870 --> 00:53:40,493 - As soon as they put in the administrator, 1049 00:53:40,527 --> 00:53:42,943 and we were losing Quinn Direct that did lead 1050 00:53:42,978 --> 00:53:45,532 to Quinn Group in trouble because Quinn Direct 1051 00:53:45,567 --> 00:53:46,740 was the biggest single contributor 1052 00:53:46,775 --> 00:53:48,225 to the profitability of it. 1053 00:53:49,433 --> 00:53:52,159 - The administration of Quinn Insurance 1054 00:53:52,194 --> 00:53:55,715 affected the resources of the rest of the Quinn Group 1055 00:53:55,749 --> 00:53:59,684 and therefore affected the capacity the bank had 1056 00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:01,824 to make sure it got repaid what it was owed 1057 00:54:01,859 --> 00:54:03,412 from the rest of the Quinn group. 1058 00:54:03,447 --> 00:54:07,692 So, the two things, you know were indissolubly linked. 1059 00:54:09,522 --> 00:54:10,902 - When you take a brick out of the wall, 1060 00:54:10,937 --> 00:54:12,594 the wall becomes very unstable. 1061 00:54:15,735 --> 00:54:18,220 [gentle music] 1062 00:54:22,362 --> 00:54:24,709 - They took Quinn Insurance from underneath him. 1063 00:54:26,573 --> 00:54:29,300 There was this assumption that Quinn will buy his way 1064 00:54:29,335 --> 00:54:30,128 out of trouble. 1065 00:54:31,613 --> 00:54:33,373 Everyone thought Sean Quinn is going to regain control 1066 00:54:33,408 --> 00:54:35,962 of the company until he didn't. 1067 00:54:38,378 --> 00:54:41,105 He had his opportunity to go into court and to try 1068 00:54:41,139 --> 00:54:44,626 and seek the removal of the joint administrators. 1069 00:54:45,627 --> 00:54:46,421 He didn't. 1070 00:54:48,733 --> 00:54:50,287 He had the option to put his hand in his pocket 1071 00:54:50,321 --> 00:54:52,703 and write a check for a couple hundred million Euro 1072 00:54:52,737 --> 00:54:53,807 to shore it up. 1073 00:54:53,842 --> 00:54:55,361 He didn't. 1074 00:54:55,395 --> 00:54:58,398 So gradually then people began to realize that Sean Quinn 1075 00:54:58,433 --> 00:55:01,746 didn't have as much money as one assumed he had. 1076 00:55:03,161 --> 00:55:07,545 - He proved to be absolutely opposed to any kind 1077 00:55:07,580 --> 00:55:11,031 of restructuring that didn't have him as the center of it. 1078 00:55:11,066 --> 00:55:14,241 So it came to the point where we just took the view 1079 00:55:14,276 --> 00:55:16,796 that he couldn't be involved. 1080 00:55:20,834 --> 00:55:23,354 The reason for the meeting on the 14th of April 1081 00:55:23,389 --> 00:55:27,600 was to talk to Sean Quinn about a last chance agreement 1082 00:55:27,634 --> 00:55:28,739 we can make. 1083 00:55:30,844 --> 00:55:33,916 We had put a proposal to him sometime before that, 1084 00:55:33,951 --> 00:55:38,714 which would've left him and his family with a measure 1085 00:55:38,749 --> 00:55:42,787 of provision, but it required him definitively to step away 1086 00:55:42,822 --> 00:55:45,721 from connection with the company and just let the rest 1087 00:55:45,756 --> 00:55:47,551 of us get on with it. 1088 00:55:47,585 --> 00:55:50,968 - Oh, he, this is the peculiar part about the whole thing, 1089 00:55:51,002 --> 00:55:54,523 is they were saying that, while negotiating 1090 00:55:54,558 --> 00:55:58,941 that maybe get back Quinn Direct and Alan Dukes cost, 1091 00:55:58,976 --> 00:56:01,530 asked me when I go up to Dublin to meet him 1092 00:56:01,565 --> 00:56:03,221 in Anglo's office. 1093 00:56:03,256 --> 00:56:05,431 Kevin Lunney and Dara O'Reilly came with me. 1094 00:56:05,465 --> 00:56:07,743 - We had no expectation that he was going to agree, 1095 00:56:07,778 --> 00:56:10,228 with what we were going to do, but it was agreed 1096 00:56:10,263 --> 00:56:13,991 I would put the proposal to him and we will see 1097 00:56:14,025 --> 00:56:15,648 what his reaction would be. 1098 00:56:19,652 --> 00:56:22,793 - Duke said, "Look, we're taking over the company." 1099 00:56:26,486 --> 00:56:27,970 - He's not a very demonstrative man, 1100 00:56:28,005 --> 00:56:29,903 but he was obviously shocked. 1101 00:56:31,422 --> 00:56:36,151 He didn't say a whole lot very quickly but he then asked, 1102 00:56:37,255 --> 00:56:38,774 what were the implications of this? 1103 00:56:38,809 --> 00:56:40,880 Were we going to take all of the businesses? 1104 00:56:40,914 --> 00:56:43,917 Were we going to take all of the units, 1105 00:56:43,952 --> 00:56:45,850 all of the property assets? 1106 00:56:45,885 --> 00:56:47,645 To which the answer was yes. 1107 00:56:48,888 --> 00:56:50,268 - Duke said they we're taken over the company 1108 00:56:50,303 --> 00:56:52,512 and there was people who had gone to Derrylin this morning 1109 00:56:52,547 --> 00:56:55,515 as we speak, there's people taking over, Slieve Russell 1110 00:56:55,550 --> 00:56:58,691 and Quinn Group, and they're in your head office 1111 00:56:58,725 --> 00:57:00,900 and you two men are gone along with, 1112 00:57:00,934 --> 00:57:03,109 Sean's gone and you two boys are gone as well. 1113 00:57:03,143 --> 00:57:03,937 You're sacked. 1114 00:57:05,180 --> 00:57:06,043 Everybody's gone. 1115 00:57:07,907 --> 00:57:08,873 - [Interviewer] And what did you do immediately 1116 00:57:08,908 --> 00:57:10,254 after that meeting? 1117 00:57:10,288 --> 00:57:13,809 - There was a decision made there and then that we would try 1118 00:57:13,844 --> 00:57:16,916 to secure the assets that they hadn't loaned money to. 1119 00:57:16,950 --> 00:57:19,712 We didn't touch anything they had loaned money to. 1120 00:57:19,746 --> 00:57:22,646 Now it was a bad decision, but that's what we decided. 1121 00:57:25,303 --> 00:57:30,032 It wasn't my idea to, it wasn't that I wouldn't do it, 1122 00:57:30,067 --> 00:57:32,759 I would do it, but I hadn't thought of moving the assets 1123 00:57:32,794 --> 00:57:34,761 that were, that they hadn't financed. 1124 00:57:34,796 --> 00:57:36,832 Other people who were smarter than I, 1125 00:57:36,867 --> 00:57:39,697 they thought of it and I said, "That's a good idea." 1126 00:57:39,732 --> 00:57:40,836 So I supported it. 1127 00:57:40,871 --> 00:57:42,286 So I'm not trying to blame anybody. 1128 00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:43,943 And if I'd thought of it myself, 1129 00:57:43,977 --> 00:57:48,430 I'd probably have proposed it, you know, but people were on, 1130 00:57:49,914 --> 00:57:54,125 were on the airplanes that evening trying to agree, 1131 00:57:54,160 --> 00:57:56,127 individuals that we could move to assets 1132 00:57:56,162 --> 00:57:58,095 into different names to keep them safe. 1133 00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:03,065 - On the 14th of April, 2011, the receivers 1134 00:58:03,100 --> 00:58:05,343 went into the buildings and secured the buildings 1135 00:58:05,378 --> 00:58:07,656 of the Quinn businesses in Ireland, 1136 00:58:07,691 --> 00:58:09,451 and they weren't coming back. 1137 00:58:11,039 --> 00:58:13,766 But, you know, an office block in Russia takes a bit longer 1138 00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:16,700 and the ownership is in a particular company and maybe only 1139 00:58:16,734 --> 00:58:19,737 Sean Quinn and a handful of people know where exactly 1140 00:58:19,772 --> 00:58:21,049 the ownership of that sits. 1141 00:58:24,224 --> 00:58:27,434 - [Alan] For us, this was the beginning of the next stage 1142 00:58:27,469 --> 00:58:28,953 of the process. 1143 00:58:28,988 --> 00:58:31,128 We had finally got to a position we thought where we could 1144 00:58:31,162 --> 00:58:32,957 actually control what was going to happen 1145 00:58:32,992 --> 00:58:34,511 to the group of companies. 1146 00:58:34,545 --> 00:58:37,030 As time went by, we found that that was more 1147 00:58:37,065 --> 00:58:38,411 and more problematic. 1148 00:58:38,445 --> 00:58:42,380 Particularly for the property assets outside of Ireland. 1149 00:58:42,415 --> 00:58:44,521 We knew we were entering the beginning of something new, 1150 00:58:44,555 --> 00:58:47,558 but we didn't realize at that stage quite how difficult 1151 00:58:47,593 --> 00:58:48,525 it was going to be. 1152 00:58:50,043 --> 00:58:51,320 - I mean, it was this whole sequence 1153 00:58:51,355 --> 00:58:53,391 of completely unprecedented events. 1154 00:58:53,426 --> 00:58:56,049 But that was a really stunning turn of events 1155 00:58:56,084 --> 00:58:57,188 for Sean Quinn. 1156 00:58:57,223 --> 00:58:59,743 The court cases played out about the ownership 1157 00:58:59,777 --> 00:59:01,538 of the Quinn International property group, 1158 00:59:01,572 --> 00:59:05,024 and the court came down on the side of IBRC 1159 00:59:05,058 --> 00:59:08,234 and decided that yes, the Quinn's had proactively 1160 00:59:08,268 --> 00:59:09,925 put a scheme in place to put these properties 1161 00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:11,133 beyond the bank. 1162 00:59:11,168 --> 00:59:13,550 - [Reporter] Sean Quinn, his son, Sean Jr. 1163 00:59:13,584 --> 00:59:17,381 and Peter Darragh Quinn, were subject to court orders. 1164 00:59:17,415 --> 00:59:20,936 The bank tried to seize valuable foreign assets. 1165 00:59:20,971 --> 00:59:24,250 It found they'd been put beyond the reach of the bank. 1166 00:59:26,045 --> 00:59:27,287 - Sean Quinn's a very smart man. 1167 00:59:27,322 --> 00:59:28,806 He understood exactly what he was doing. 1168 00:59:28,841 --> 00:59:30,567 He chose not to understand. 1169 00:59:30,601 --> 00:59:34,087 And there was also an inescapable view from Sean Quinn 1170 00:59:34,122 --> 00:59:37,953 that he owned it all, that it was all his, and as a result, 1171 00:59:37,988 --> 00:59:39,783 he could do whatever he wanted with it. 1172 00:59:39,817 --> 00:59:43,200 So if it meant transferring assets from here to there, 1173 00:59:43,234 --> 00:59:44,995 he was happy to do that. 1174 00:59:45,029 --> 00:59:47,584 - I think the lengths to which they went to, 1175 00:59:47,618 --> 00:59:50,587 to put the property beyond the reach of the banks 1176 00:59:50,621 --> 00:59:51,795 were extraordinary. 1177 00:59:51,829 --> 00:59:54,418 They were plotting it for quite a while. 1178 00:59:54,452 --> 00:59:55,971 Now, it's interesting, you know, 1179 00:59:56,006 --> 00:59:57,801 it wasn't particularly well thought out strategy. 1180 00:59:57,835 --> 01:00:01,114 It wasn't one that was entirely foolproof 1181 01:00:01,149 --> 01:00:05,049 and in terms of the people that they hired to assist him 1182 01:00:05,084 --> 01:00:07,638 in that strategy certainly wouldn't have been seen 1183 01:00:07,673 --> 01:00:11,124 as being blue chip and the right type of advisors 1184 01:00:11,159 --> 01:00:12,643 to do that kind of work. 1185 01:00:12,678 --> 01:00:14,507 - [Reporter] Sean Quinn Jr. and his cousin, 1186 01:00:14,541 --> 01:00:17,027 Peter Darragh Quinn, were sentenced yesterday 1187 01:00:17,061 --> 01:00:18,131 at the high court in Dublin 1188 01:00:18,166 --> 01:00:21,100 to three months in jail after being found to be 1189 01:00:21,134 --> 01:00:22,584 in contempt of court. 1190 01:00:24,103 --> 01:00:27,313 - Contempt of court is used, usually to focus the mind 1191 01:00:27,347 --> 01:00:30,316 and it's a threat that doesn't often get invoked. 1192 01:00:30,350 --> 01:00:33,664 Sean Quinn Jr. got three months and his cousin Petie Quinn 1193 01:00:33,699 --> 01:00:36,322 has never resurfaced in the Republic of Ireland. 1194 01:00:36,356 --> 01:00:37,737 Got three months in prison. 1195 01:00:39,049 --> 01:00:40,706 And that was a big day. 1196 01:00:40,740 --> 01:00:44,675 But the day in November when Sean Quinn Sr was found 1197 01:00:44,710 --> 01:00:46,159 also in contempt of court, 1198 01:00:46,194 --> 01:00:48,921 was just absolutely extraordinary. 1199 01:00:50,163 --> 01:00:52,752 - The former billionaire businessman Sean Quinn 1200 01:00:52,787 --> 01:00:55,859 has been jailed for nine weeks for contempt of court. 1201 01:01:00,864 --> 01:01:03,487 - We would not have wanted any of that to happen, 1202 01:01:04,971 --> 01:01:07,698 but it happened because they set out deliberately 1203 01:01:07,733 --> 01:01:10,114 to put assets beyond the reach of the bank, 1204 01:01:10,149 --> 01:01:13,704 to which the bank had a perfectly good legal entitlement 1205 01:01:13,739 --> 01:01:16,776 as determined time and time again by the courts. 1206 01:01:21,505 --> 01:01:24,163 - Look around the border if they felt those guys in Dublin 1207 01:01:24,197 --> 01:01:26,096 have wrecked it all for us, and then they're putting 1208 01:01:26,130 --> 01:01:27,649 our guy out of business. 1209 01:01:29,755 --> 01:01:32,205 It's the financial regulator in Dublin. 1210 01:01:32,240 --> 01:01:37,141 It's the media in Dublin, it's the government in Dublin, 1211 01:01:37,176 --> 01:01:39,109 and they don't understand what it's like to live 1212 01:01:39,143 --> 01:01:40,110 in the country. 1213 01:01:41,559 --> 01:01:43,009 - When Elizabeth Dunne said, 1214 01:01:44,217 --> 01:01:46,392 we're giving him nine weeks and he has a week 1215 01:01:46,426 --> 01:01:47,565 or whatever time he needs to consider it, 1216 01:01:47,600 --> 01:01:49,809 what he wants to say or do. 1217 01:01:49,844 --> 01:01:51,155 I just stood up in the court, I said, 1218 01:01:51,190 --> 01:01:53,261 "I'm going this evening." 1219 01:01:54,676 --> 01:01:57,023 I went to the bar along with a couple of friends of mine, 1220 01:01:57,058 --> 01:02:00,199 local locals here, and I had two pints of beer 1221 01:02:00,233 --> 01:02:02,719 and two or three double brandies 1222 01:02:02,753 --> 01:02:07,689 and headed straight for the white van into Mountjoy. 1223 01:02:09,933 --> 01:02:11,141 - [Interviewer] What was it like 1224 01:02:11,175 --> 01:02:13,005 when that door closed behind you? 1225 01:02:13,039 --> 01:02:14,247 - I was drunk. 1226 01:02:22,152 --> 01:02:23,187 - [Rodney] You know, you've got this incredible image 1227 01:02:23,222 --> 01:02:25,983 of that man sitting in that amazing house 1228 01:02:26,018 --> 01:02:30,160 and then that night was sitting in a prison cell. 1229 01:02:30,194 --> 01:02:32,783 There was a lot of shock in the area. 1230 01:02:32,818 --> 01:02:35,924 A lot of people were wondering what this meant overall 1231 01:02:35,959 --> 01:02:39,134 for everything and there was certainly a lot of anger 1232 01:02:39,169 --> 01:02:40,860 in the area from his supporters. 1233 01:02:45,175 --> 01:02:46,452 So this is Dune Mountain. 1234 01:02:46,486 --> 01:02:48,247 This is where over a two year period, 1235 01:02:48,281 --> 01:02:50,180 a huge number of attacks took place. 1236 01:02:50,214 --> 01:02:52,216 The electoral substations were targeted, 1237 01:02:52,251 --> 01:02:53,666 the wind farms were targeted, 1238 01:02:53,700 --> 01:02:56,980 and dozens of telegraph poles were cut down and it was all 1239 01:02:57,014 --> 01:02:59,361 to cause disruption to all of the factories 1240 01:02:59,396 --> 01:03:01,191 on the other side of that mountain. 1241 01:03:04,850 --> 01:03:07,197 There were two distinct period of attacks. 1242 01:03:07,231 --> 01:03:10,269 They began in the days after the business was taken over, 1243 01:03:10,303 --> 01:03:12,823 but developed over the following years. 1244 01:03:12,858 --> 01:03:14,963 They were all about preventing the administrators 1245 01:03:14,998 --> 01:03:17,207 from selling off the Quinn businesses. 1246 01:03:19,312 --> 01:03:20,658 - [Reporter] Quinn Group has new owners 1247 01:03:20,693 --> 01:03:23,040 under new name Aventas. 1248 01:03:23,075 --> 01:03:26,526 More than 1,100 people are employed by the Aventas Group. 1249 01:03:26,561 --> 01:03:29,357 Jobs put at risk by a campaign of attacks. 1250 01:03:32,084 --> 01:03:34,707 [intense music] 1251 01:03:35,881 --> 01:03:37,227 - [Rodney] The attacks started quite low scale 1252 01:03:37,261 --> 01:03:41,093 and then they soon intensified from cutting 1253 01:03:41,127 --> 01:03:44,890 electricity wires to setting fire to vehicles, 1254 01:03:44,924 --> 01:03:48,514 to crashing cars into sides of buildings. 1255 01:03:48,548 --> 01:03:51,448 Part of an ongoing campaign of intimidation 1256 01:03:51,482 --> 01:03:54,520 and threats to try to warn off people who are 1257 01:03:54,554 --> 01:03:57,834 maybe attempting to buy parts of the business. 1258 01:03:57,868 --> 01:03:59,663 - Fundamentally, this community and its employees 1259 01:03:59,697 --> 01:04:00,940 are one in the same thing. 1260 01:04:00,975 --> 01:04:03,046 I think there's a very narrow minded minority 1261 01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:04,702 who are actually conducting these campaigns 1262 01:04:04,737 --> 01:04:07,291 of violence and sabotage and intimidation. 1263 01:04:10,916 --> 01:04:15,265 - Certainly the heavy-handed approach by an Irish government 1264 01:04:15,299 --> 01:04:19,856 selected by the people to win with that heavy hand 1265 01:04:19,890 --> 01:04:24,101 into a rural area who had done nothing but good in that area 1266 01:04:24,136 --> 01:04:26,172 and take it over and destroy it. 1267 01:04:26,207 --> 01:04:29,348 I mean, it was criminal and of course it was going 1268 01:04:29,382 --> 01:04:31,591 to raise tensions and of course things were going to happen 1269 01:04:31,626 --> 01:04:32,730 and did happen. 1270 01:04:32,765 --> 01:04:33,524 Was I part of it? 1271 01:04:33,559 --> 01:04:34,905 Absolutely not. 1272 01:04:34,940 --> 01:04:37,666 Was I anger, was it done because of my anger? 1273 01:04:37,701 --> 01:04:39,461 Was it done because I was telling the truth 1274 01:04:39,496 --> 01:04:41,567 about what the position was? 1275 01:04:41,601 --> 01:04:43,120 Maybe. 1276 01:04:43,155 --> 01:04:45,364 But was I involved in planning it and involved? 1277 01:04:45,398 --> 01:04:46,503 Absolutely not. 1278 01:04:52,543 --> 01:04:56,168 - The Irish cement market started to liberalize in the 1990s 1279 01:04:56,202 --> 01:04:59,826 and as a result both Sean Quinn and Kevin Lagan 1280 01:04:59,861 --> 01:05:02,415 looked at building large plants. 1281 01:05:02,450 --> 01:05:04,003 There was a bitterness there, 1282 01:05:04,038 --> 01:05:06,557 there was a rivalry there that kind of spilled out 1283 01:05:06,592 --> 01:05:09,146 when they both started to plant flags 1284 01:05:09,181 --> 01:05:10,458 into their public market. 1285 01:05:11,804 --> 01:05:15,394 When Quinn got into distress and the business was in peril, 1286 01:05:15,428 --> 01:05:17,637 Kevin Lagan was an obvious buyer. 1287 01:05:17,672 --> 01:05:20,330 The difficulty obviously was that there was this emnity 1288 01:05:20,364 --> 01:05:21,918 in the past. 1289 01:05:21,952 --> 01:05:24,368 Lagan was quite determined to try and rescue the business 1290 01:05:24,403 --> 01:05:26,198 and rescue the jobs and, you know, 1291 01:05:26,232 --> 01:05:28,614 he would've had a lot of good standing with the banks, 1292 01:05:28,648 --> 01:05:30,167 good standing. 1293 01:05:30,202 --> 01:05:32,238 He was somebody who could, who could easily have stepped 1294 01:05:32,273 --> 01:05:35,034 into a lot of those businesses and just changed the name 1295 01:05:35,069 --> 01:05:36,380 over the door. 1296 01:05:36,415 --> 01:05:37,795 But obviously that was the problem for Quinn. 1297 01:05:37,830 --> 01:05:40,488 He didn't want to see anybody's name over the door. 1298 01:05:44,561 --> 01:05:47,460 - Kevin Lagan got a parcel in the post and inside 1299 01:05:47,495 --> 01:05:50,256 that parcel was a cigar box. 1300 01:05:50,291 --> 01:05:55,054 Inside the cigar box was a bullet and a message that said, 1301 01:05:55,089 --> 01:05:57,401 "Quinn, is this what you want?" 1302 01:05:58,713 --> 01:06:00,991 - If you read between the lines, 1303 01:06:01,026 --> 01:06:03,994 do you want to be coming into the lions den 1304 01:06:04,029 --> 01:06:06,410 to run the business and to contribute 1305 01:06:06,445 --> 01:06:11,415 to making our community non-friendly. 1306 01:06:12,589 --> 01:06:15,868 Let's use that word, non-friendly or hostile. 1307 01:06:18,526 --> 01:06:21,253 - Really, it was a case that Quinn's supporters 1308 01:06:21,287 --> 01:06:23,462 didn't want anybody taking over the business, obviously. 1309 01:06:23,496 --> 01:06:27,190 But I'd say Kevin Lagan probably would've been towards 1310 01:06:27,224 --> 01:06:29,606 the top of people not to take the business over. 1311 01:06:30,883 --> 01:06:32,057 - The whole thing was a mess. 1312 01:06:32,091 --> 01:06:34,404 I mean, the whole attacks that happened, 1313 01:06:35,853 --> 01:06:37,372 people were pointing the finger at me. 1314 01:06:37,407 --> 01:06:40,617 I had no hand, act or part in any attack. 1315 01:06:40,651 --> 01:06:44,483 I suppose I played a bit of football and you get a box 1316 01:06:44,517 --> 01:06:47,382 in the mouth or you give one or get one and you have 1317 01:06:47,417 --> 01:06:48,625 to get on with life. 1318 01:06:48,659 --> 01:06:49,522 There's no point in crying about it. 1319 01:06:49,557 --> 01:06:50,765 You just get on and move on. 1320 01:06:53,940 --> 01:06:55,735 - The intimidation and the violence 1321 01:06:55,770 --> 01:06:57,392 basically scared everybody off. 1322 01:06:57,427 --> 01:07:02,328 So I think there was a feeling that you weren't gonna get 1323 01:07:03,053 --> 01:07:04,537 an outside buyer. 1324 01:07:04,572 --> 01:07:05,607 That the buyer for the business would probably have to come 1325 01:07:05,642 --> 01:07:06,643 from the inside. 1326 01:07:11,475 --> 01:07:12,718 - Something had to be done. 1327 01:07:12,752 --> 01:07:16,515 We weren't able to continue to keep the business 1328 01:07:16,549 --> 01:07:19,552 and be sold but we had to have an alternative. 1329 01:07:19,587 --> 01:07:21,968 We had to have a management buyout. 1330 01:07:24,454 --> 01:07:27,698 - There were lots of rumors at the time that there was work 1331 01:07:27,733 --> 01:07:30,701 underway to try to come up with a plan that would see 1332 01:07:30,736 --> 01:07:32,496 the return of Quinn. 1333 01:07:32,531 --> 01:07:35,775 Essentially what was happening was there was a consortium, 1334 01:07:35,810 --> 01:07:38,433 a local consortium that were meeting regularly, 1335 01:07:38,468 --> 01:07:42,575 trying to thrash out a plan that would see them take control 1336 01:07:42,610 --> 01:07:46,096 of the Quinn business and then return Sean Quinn 1337 01:07:46,131 --> 01:07:47,166 to that business. 1338 01:07:49,134 --> 01:07:54,139 - So John McCartin came to me in 2014, early 2014, 1339 01:07:55,519 --> 01:07:58,867 and said that there could be a deal done and that there will 1340 01:07:58,902 --> 01:08:02,871 a position to buy the manufacturing business. 1341 01:08:02,906 --> 01:08:05,564 And of course that was sweet music to my ears 1342 01:08:06,944 --> 01:08:11,777 that this company should go back to where it belonged 1343 01:08:11,811 --> 01:08:14,814 and it should come back into the family and the community. 1344 01:08:16,644 --> 01:08:18,956 - John McCartin is a Fine Gael councillor at the time 1345 01:08:18,991 --> 01:08:20,475 and a businessman. 1346 01:08:20,510 --> 01:08:24,376 And he was very well regarded in the border region 1347 01:08:24,410 --> 01:08:26,964 but also in business and he was someone 1348 01:08:26,999 --> 01:08:29,174 that got on very well with Sean Quinn. 1349 01:08:29,208 --> 01:08:31,590 Their families went back years. 1350 01:08:33,005 --> 01:08:35,663 John McCartin and Sean Quinn were very close. 1351 01:08:39,011 --> 01:08:42,704 - So, I rang Liam McCaffrey and I asked to meet him. 1352 01:08:42,739 --> 01:08:45,121 Liam said he would and he arranged to meet 1353 01:08:45,155 --> 01:08:47,847 all the directors, past directors of Quinn Group, 1354 01:08:47,882 --> 01:08:51,161 and they all met the following night and every single one 1355 01:08:51,196 --> 01:08:54,164 of them agreed, you know, that they would throw 1356 01:08:54,199 --> 01:08:56,960 their shoulder to the wheel and they would get on board. 1357 01:08:59,652 --> 01:09:04,381 - They called it Q-B-R-C, Quinn Business Retention Company. 1358 01:09:08,074 --> 01:09:11,837 - Our group between signs and protests and anything 1359 01:09:11,871 --> 01:09:14,598 we could do that could deter Paul O'Brien, 1360 01:09:14,633 --> 01:09:17,532 who was the receiver, from selling off, 1361 01:09:17,567 --> 01:09:19,879 breaking up the businesses and selling them off 1362 01:09:19,914 --> 01:09:22,537 to interested parties and Lagan was one of those. 1363 01:09:22,572 --> 01:09:25,540 And then there was a company from England interested 1364 01:09:25,575 --> 01:09:28,992 in the packaging or pc, a packaging company. 1365 01:09:30,407 --> 01:09:33,755 We got word probably from internally, naturally in Quinns. 1366 01:09:33,790 --> 01:09:36,586 And they rang me up to say that this was happening 1367 01:09:36,620 --> 01:09:39,175 and Paul was going to sell that business. 1368 01:09:39,209 --> 01:09:40,693 And that was important. 1369 01:09:40,728 --> 01:09:44,249 That was crucial, you know, to the Q-B-R-C package. 1370 01:09:44,283 --> 01:09:46,389 And that would have to stay within the group. 1371 01:09:46,423 --> 01:09:48,045 It wasn't valuable without that. 1372 01:09:50,738 --> 01:09:54,500 And then said that we would have to write them a letter 1373 01:09:54,535 --> 01:09:57,848 to persuade them not to pursue their interest. 1374 01:10:04,752 --> 01:10:07,651 - The letter worked, the English Packaging Company 1375 01:10:07,686 --> 01:10:09,688 immediately pulled out of the deal. 1376 01:10:09,722 --> 01:10:12,208 The administrators and the American bondholders 1377 01:10:12,242 --> 01:10:15,003 that were still owed over 1 billion Euros 1378 01:10:15,038 --> 01:10:17,316 were being frustrated at every attempt 1379 01:10:17,351 --> 01:10:18,697 to sell off the business. 1380 01:10:20,043 --> 01:10:22,701 But in the spring of 2014, despite the previous threat 1381 01:10:22,735 --> 01:10:24,737 to his life, Kevin Lagan come back to the table 1382 01:10:24,772 --> 01:10:27,153 to make a bid for Quinn Rooftiles. 1383 01:10:27,188 --> 01:10:30,605 But that only made him a target for Quinn supporters again. 1384 01:10:30,640 --> 01:10:32,642 And over the course of one weekend, 1385 01:10:32,676 --> 01:10:35,679 his businesses north and south were attacked, 1386 01:10:35,714 --> 01:10:37,957 causing over a million Euros worth of damage. 1387 01:10:39,511 --> 01:10:41,029 Kevin Lagan was initially determined to go through 1388 01:10:41,064 --> 01:10:43,722 with the deal for the roof tile factory, 1389 01:10:43,756 --> 01:10:46,449 but then another death threat arrived this time 1390 01:10:46,483 --> 01:10:48,520 on the morning of his wife's death. 1391 01:10:48,554 --> 01:10:50,280 He'd had enough and he pulled out. 1392 01:10:53,594 --> 01:10:55,941 For the American bond holders, it was the last straw. 1393 01:10:55,975 --> 01:10:59,945 They were still owed over 1.1 billion Euros. 1394 01:10:59,979 --> 01:11:03,742 And it was at this point they began to enter negotiations 1395 01:11:03,776 --> 01:11:06,917 with Quinn's business allies and former management team, 1396 01:11:06,952 --> 01:11:07,746 Q-B-R-C. 1397 01:11:09,299 --> 01:11:12,129 So this is the 140 page agreement between Q-B-R-C 1398 01:11:12,164 --> 01:11:14,477 and the three American bondholders, 1399 01:11:14,511 --> 01:11:18,757 which effectively saw an agreement to set up a new company 1400 01:11:18,791 --> 01:11:21,173 which would manage the cement business in this package 1401 01:11:21,207 --> 01:11:23,727 of business but what it didn't include 1402 01:11:23,762 --> 01:11:25,108 was the glass factory. 1403 01:11:25,142 --> 01:11:27,731 The factory, the business that Sean Quinn really wanted 1404 01:11:27,766 --> 01:11:28,767 to get his hands on. 1405 01:11:30,182 --> 01:11:33,772 What the bondholders and Q-B-R-C agreed in this document 1406 01:11:33,806 --> 01:11:34,945 was that if there was no, 1407 01:11:34,980 --> 01:11:36,982 what they called community interference, 1408 01:11:37,016 --> 01:11:39,812 defined as sabotage, threats and intimidation, 1409 01:11:39,847 --> 01:11:42,159 there's a specific clause in the deal, 1410 01:11:42,194 --> 01:11:45,301 Q-B-R-C would get a higher percentage from the sale 1411 01:11:45,335 --> 01:11:46,716 of the glass business. 1412 01:11:54,827 --> 01:11:56,795 You know, there's huge amount of detail 1413 01:11:56,829 --> 01:11:59,798 throughout this document and who it never names 1414 01:11:59,832 --> 01:12:01,109 is Sean Quinn. 1415 01:12:01,144 --> 01:12:04,147 Sean Quinn's name is not in this agreement. 1416 01:12:05,666 --> 01:12:08,703 - I suppose the one element that would've been surprise 1417 01:12:08,738 --> 01:12:11,223 would've been whether Sean Quinn was involved or not 1418 01:12:11,257 --> 01:12:12,845 and how far he would've got. 1419 01:12:12,880 --> 01:12:15,607 But that seems to have been slapped down pretty quickly 1420 01:12:15,641 --> 01:12:17,194 by the three hedge funds. 1421 01:12:17,229 --> 01:12:20,543 They didn't really want to be seen to have Sean Quinn 1422 01:12:20,577 --> 01:12:25,444 in direct control and in terms of what that reputationally 1423 01:12:25,479 --> 01:12:26,825 would mean for them. 1424 01:12:26,859 --> 01:12:29,172 And I think there would've been a lot of questions asked 1425 01:12:29,206 --> 01:12:31,485 of them if, because of the whole history. 1426 01:12:32,693 --> 01:12:34,384 His retention then as a consultant, 1427 01:12:34,419 --> 01:12:36,144 almost like a presidential role, 1428 01:12:36,179 --> 01:12:38,146 it would've sat well 'cause that would've meant 1429 01:12:38,181 --> 01:12:40,390 that he wasn't in control of the business, 1430 01:12:40,425 --> 01:12:44,843 but locally he would've still seemed to have been involved. 1431 01:12:50,849 --> 01:12:52,402 - [Reporter] The site has been purchased 1432 01:12:52,437 --> 01:12:55,025 by the Quinn Business Retention Company, 1433 01:12:55,060 --> 01:12:58,581 which is run by local business owners and supporters 1434 01:12:58,615 --> 01:13:00,099 of the former billionaire. 1435 01:13:01,307 --> 01:13:03,448 Mr. Quinn was greeted by cheering and clapping 1436 01:13:03,482 --> 01:13:05,622 when he visited the premises this morning. 1437 01:13:09,523 --> 01:13:12,836 [dramatic music] 1438 01:13:12,871 --> 01:13:15,425 - Pictures are on the television of the boys all back in 1439 01:13:15,460 --> 01:13:17,772 and Sean Quinn going about with a tray of drinks. 1440 01:13:17,807 --> 01:13:20,982 So, we were all delighted and we were all chuffed 1441 01:13:21,017 --> 01:13:24,158 and sure it was what we had campaigned for. 1442 01:13:25,884 --> 01:13:28,887 - I was there watching a cherry picker go up 1443 01:13:28,921 --> 01:13:32,477 onto the side of the building to remove the Aventas sign 1444 01:13:32,511 --> 01:13:34,893 and they took it down and they set fire to it. 1445 01:13:39,173 --> 01:13:41,831 - We thought at that stage, mission accomplished, 1446 01:13:41,865 --> 01:13:43,384 we can take a breather. 1447 01:13:46,145 --> 01:13:48,907 But naturally, because of what had happened, 1448 01:13:48,941 --> 01:13:52,876 he couldn't be seen to be back in there as boss. 1449 01:13:52,911 --> 01:13:54,671 He wasn't CEO. 1450 01:13:54,706 --> 01:13:56,052 The CEO was Liam McCaffrey. 1451 01:14:03,887 --> 01:14:06,959 - As far as I was concerned, I was completely in control. 1452 01:14:06,994 --> 01:14:09,099 I rang Liam and said, "Liam, could I meet you 1453 01:14:09,134 --> 01:14:10,307 and have a bit of a chat?" 1454 01:14:11,792 --> 01:14:14,898 So I said to him, "Am I the boss here?" 1455 01:14:14,933 --> 01:14:17,901 So I had my suspicions, but even after that, 1456 01:14:17,936 --> 01:14:20,352 day by day, week by week, you could see 1457 01:14:20,386 --> 01:14:21,871 that there was something wrong. 1458 01:14:25,391 --> 01:14:26,634 - I don't want to blame him. 1459 01:14:26,669 --> 01:14:27,532 - And I feel like all of a sudden 1460 01:14:27,566 --> 01:14:29,603 there's nobody reporting to me. 1461 01:14:30,880 --> 01:14:33,503 - Sean Quinn has been totally ignored and humiliated. 1462 01:14:35,436 --> 01:14:36,886 - I felt I had no choice. 1463 01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:38,922 I knew the game was up. 1464 01:14:38,957 --> 01:14:41,338 So I said, okay, bye-bye. 1465 01:14:42,339 --> 01:14:43,858 Not a penny from Allen Dukes. 1466 01:14:43,893 --> 01:14:46,965 Not a penny of redundancy, not a penny from anybody 1467 01:14:46,999 --> 01:14:48,898 for anything, nothing. 1468 01:14:48,932 --> 01:14:51,210 Just everybody tried to bleed us dry 1469 01:14:51,245 --> 01:14:52,695 so we couldn't pursue them. 1470 01:14:54,973 --> 01:14:56,940 - When the news came through that he'd left the business, 1471 01:14:56,975 --> 01:14:59,011 there was a state of disbelief. 1472 01:14:59,046 --> 01:15:02,290 It really was a case of him almost overplaying his hand 1473 01:15:02,325 --> 01:15:04,879 once he'd left the business and once he'd left the building, 1474 01:15:04,914 --> 01:15:09,435 and it was very hard to see of anyway he could get back in. 1475 01:15:09,470 --> 01:15:10,540 - I built that company. 1476 01:15:10,575 --> 01:15:11,921 They didn't build that company, 1477 01:15:11,955 --> 01:15:13,785 I built that company. 1478 01:15:13,819 --> 01:15:16,201 - There was allegations being made all over the place 1479 01:15:16,235 --> 01:15:17,927 on both sides. 1480 01:15:17,961 --> 01:15:21,378 One saying one thing, the other saying a different thing. 1481 01:15:21,413 --> 01:15:24,002 But this time there was something a wee bit more hostile 1482 01:15:24,036 --> 01:15:26,832 about it that was very hot and heavy. 1483 01:15:28,247 --> 01:15:30,180 - They were trying to give an excuse of why 1484 01:15:30,215 --> 01:15:31,975 they would push Sean Quinn out. 1485 01:15:33,494 --> 01:15:36,462 That doesn't lead to good relations and people can get 1486 01:15:36,497 --> 01:15:37,947 wrong ideas in their head. 1487 01:15:39,983 --> 01:15:42,468 - Sean Quinn was out of the business again. 1488 01:15:42,503 --> 01:15:44,643 The wind farms and the plastics business 1489 01:15:44,678 --> 01:15:47,059 and the glass plant, they were all gone. 1490 01:15:47,094 --> 01:15:49,061 For a period of time, there were discussions 1491 01:15:49,096 --> 01:15:51,581 between Q-B-R-C and the Quinn family, 1492 01:15:51,616 --> 01:15:53,618 but a deal proved impossible. 1493 01:15:54,791 --> 01:15:57,138 Violence returned to the border and this time 1494 01:15:57,173 --> 01:15:59,934 the very executive team that Sean Quinn had built 1495 01:15:59,969 --> 01:16:01,004 became the targets. 1496 01:16:04,456 --> 01:16:09,047 - The second phase of attacks began towards the end of 2015. 1497 01:16:11,808 --> 01:16:14,086 [dog barks] 1498 01:16:14,121 --> 01:16:16,951 This time the targets were the management of the company, 1499 01:16:16,986 --> 01:16:20,403 Kevin Lunney, Dara O'Reilly and Liam McCaffrey. 1500 01:16:21,887 --> 01:16:24,303 Posters calling them money grabbers and making threats 1501 01:16:24,338 --> 01:16:26,133 began to appear on the border. 1502 01:16:29,032 --> 01:16:31,034 Here we have the incident of the pig's head 1503 01:16:31,069 --> 01:16:34,279 that caused massive controversy here at the time. 1504 01:16:34,313 --> 01:16:37,316 A pig's head was left at the home of Kevin Lunney. 1505 01:16:37,351 --> 01:16:40,216 It was found by one of his daughters. 1506 01:16:40,250 --> 01:16:42,632 It was seen as a very sinister move 1507 01:16:42,667 --> 01:16:46,222 and caused much revulsion in the area. 1508 01:16:51,952 --> 01:16:53,678 - They have annoyed a lot of people, 1509 01:16:55,024 --> 01:16:57,474 the number of farmers across the side of that mountain, 1510 01:16:57,509 --> 01:17:01,099 and the number of customers and the number of people 1511 01:17:01,133 --> 01:17:03,446 that have issued legal proceedings against 1512 01:17:03,480 --> 01:17:06,242 and went to reneging on the deal with the Quinns, 1513 01:17:06,276 --> 01:17:07,864 so they have a lot of enemies. 1514 01:17:11,178 --> 01:17:13,801 - [Reporter] Father of six, Kevin Lunney was abducted 1515 01:17:13,836 --> 01:17:16,424 close to his home in Derrylin in County Fermanaugh. 1516 01:17:16,459 --> 01:17:19,289 He was badly beaten before being dumped on the side 1517 01:17:19,324 --> 01:17:21,015 of the road in county Cavan. 1518 01:17:21,050 --> 01:17:24,225 His attack represented an escalation in the campaign 1519 01:17:24,260 --> 01:17:27,504 of intimidation and violence against the executive team 1520 01:17:27,539 --> 01:17:28,851 in recent years. 1521 01:17:31,094 --> 01:17:34,270 - It was a Tuesday evening, September 17th, 2019. 1522 01:17:35,720 --> 01:17:38,067 Mr. Lunney left work sometime after six o'clock 1523 01:17:38,101 --> 01:17:40,310 and he was driving up this narrow little country lane 1524 01:17:40,345 --> 01:17:43,072 that leads to his home in Derrylin in county Fermanagh. 1525 01:17:45,108 --> 01:17:48,180 When he saw the white BMW parked in the lane way 1526 01:17:48,215 --> 01:17:52,150 in front of him, and he said immediately as he stopped 1527 01:17:52,184 --> 01:17:53,738 this BMW reversed. 1528 01:17:56,948 --> 01:17:59,709 Immediately two men emerged from that BMW. 1529 01:17:59,744 --> 01:18:01,193 They were both wearing face masks, 1530 01:18:01,228 --> 01:18:02,919 their faces were completely covered and they 1531 01:18:02,954 --> 01:18:04,231 were wearing black clothing. 1532 01:18:07,199 --> 01:18:09,305 These two men approached Mr. Lunney's car and tried 1533 01:18:09,339 --> 01:18:10,202 to drag him out of it. 1534 01:18:10,237 --> 01:18:11,514 And he said there was a scuffle. 1535 01:18:11,548 --> 01:18:13,619 He kicked at them from inside the vehicle. 1536 01:18:15,967 --> 01:18:17,623 So it took some time for them to get him out 1537 01:18:17,658 --> 01:18:19,177 of the Land Cruiser. 1538 01:18:19,211 --> 01:18:20,903 When they got him outside, he realized that there 1539 01:18:20,937 --> 01:18:24,458 was another man had arrived in an Audi A4. 1540 01:18:26,184 --> 01:18:27,564 Described him as being bigger, 1541 01:18:27,599 --> 01:18:29,325 heavier set than the other two. 1542 01:18:29,359 --> 01:18:32,293 So this man had a Stanley knife in his hand and he held it 1543 01:18:32,328 --> 01:18:33,432 to Mr. Lunney's face. 1544 01:18:35,227 --> 01:18:36,919 - Get in there! 1545 01:18:36,953 --> 01:18:37,747 Get in! 1546 01:18:44,996 --> 01:18:48,240 - [Eoin] He felt the Audi startup and move at speed. 1547 01:18:48,275 --> 01:18:52,072 This journey continued for about 40 to 50 minutes. 1548 01:18:53,556 --> 01:18:56,041 The boot opened up again and he noticed that he was 1549 01:18:56,076 --> 01:18:57,525 in a very overgrown area. 1550 01:18:57,560 --> 01:19:01,771 He figured it was a farm yard of some kind, pretty unkempt. 1551 01:19:01,806 --> 01:19:04,636 And there were a number of trailers, in particular, 1552 01:19:04,670 --> 01:19:06,569 a blue trailer. 1553 01:19:06,603 --> 01:19:09,123 Once he was in there, this is when really, 1554 01:19:09,158 --> 01:19:11,988 I suppose the abduction has turned into a false imprisonment 1555 01:19:12,023 --> 01:19:15,543 now and the assault on Mr. Lunney would begin 1556 01:19:15,578 --> 01:19:16,959 inside that trailer. 1557 01:19:22,067 --> 01:19:26,175 At that point, his attacker then held him up and told him 1558 01:19:26,209 --> 01:19:28,211 so that you'll remember why you're here. 1559 01:19:30,524 --> 01:19:32,284 We need to mark you so that you'll remember 1560 01:19:32,319 --> 01:19:33,320 why this happened. 1561 01:19:35,046 --> 01:19:38,083 They then took bleach and they used a rag to rub bleach 1562 01:19:38,118 --> 01:19:39,982 into his legs, into his torso. 1563 01:19:40,016 --> 01:19:42,260 That caused an immense amount of pain, he said. 1564 01:19:42,294 --> 01:19:44,227 And then they used the bag to rub the bleach 1565 01:19:44,262 --> 01:19:45,746 all over his face and head. 1566 01:19:48,266 --> 01:19:52,132 They then used a wooden bat to strike Mr. Lunney's shin. 1567 01:19:53,650 --> 01:19:55,514 He said that after the first strike, 1568 01:19:55,549 --> 01:19:58,034 he knew that his shin had broken, 1569 01:19:58,069 --> 01:19:59,864 but then he was struck again almost immediately 1570 01:19:59,898 --> 01:20:01,313 in exactly the same place. 1571 01:20:05,041 --> 01:20:06,802 They told him that they were gonna leave him at the side 1572 01:20:06,836 --> 01:20:09,252 of a road but he was warned, do not look back. 1573 01:20:12,152 --> 01:20:13,843 And he was pushed out of the van with his face 1574 01:20:13,878 --> 01:20:15,880 facing towards the ditch. 1575 01:20:23,370 --> 01:20:25,510 - [Reporter] A board member of Quinn Industrial Holdings 1576 01:20:25,544 --> 01:20:28,651 claimed today the attack was carried out by people 1577 01:20:28,685 --> 01:20:31,309 who were contracted and paid to do it. 1578 01:20:33,587 --> 01:20:36,555 This morning, as part of an ongoing investigation, 1579 01:20:36,590 --> 01:20:39,213 Garda made three arrests. 1580 01:20:39,248 --> 01:20:41,422 Amid high security, the men were brought 1581 01:20:41,457 --> 01:20:43,700 to Virginia Courthouse this morning. 1582 01:20:43,735 --> 01:20:46,358 The details of the allegations against the men 1583 01:20:46,393 --> 01:20:49,085 cannot be reported at this stage. 1584 01:20:49,120 --> 01:20:52,744 Garda here say their investigation is continuing. 1585 01:20:54,297 --> 01:20:56,955 - The attack on Kevin changed everything. 1586 01:20:56,990 --> 01:21:00,234 It changed people's perception that this attack 1587 01:21:00,269 --> 01:21:03,099 they believed at the time was carried out 1588 01:21:03,134 --> 01:21:05,067 in support of Quinn. 1589 01:21:05,101 --> 01:21:08,346 And I think he has lost a lot of respect in the area 1590 01:21:08,380 --> 01:21:11,383 from people who would've previously supported him. 1591 01:21:15,491 --> 01:21:18,459 - [Interviewer] Did you have anything to do with the attack 1592 01:21:18,494 --> 01:21:19,253 on Kevin Lunney? 1593 01:21:19,288 --> 01:21:21,531 - Absolutely nothing. 1594 01:21:21,566 --> 01:21:23,257 Absolutely nothing. 1595 01:21:23,292 --> 01:21:26,605 Where would I, why would I bother me head with Kevin Lunney? 1596 01:21:26,640 --> 01:21:28,676 Just think about why would I bother my head 1597 01:21:28,711 --> 01:21:29,574 with Kevin Lunney? 1598 01:21:30,955 --> 01:21:35,614 One thing I think that somebody should ask Kevin Lunney, 1599 01:21:38,307 --> 01:21:39,653 why was he attacked? 1600 01:21:41,413 --> 01:21:44,416 What they have done over the last six, seven years 1601 01:21:44,451 --> 01:21:47,316 and the level of betrayal is probably unprecedented 1602 01:21:47,350 --> 01:21:48,869 in the history of this state. 1603 01:21:50,940 --> 01:21:53,460 Now I have nothing good to say about Kevin Lunney. 1604 01:21:55,669 --> 01:21:58,189 I'd like to make a presentation to somebody 1605 01:21:58,223 --> 01:22:00,570 who had a major influence on the success of Quinn Direct 1606 01:22:00,605 --> 01:22:01,986 over the past 10 years. 1607 01:22:04,333 --> 01:22:07,163 Somebody has to have the respect of their colleagues 1608 01:22:08,337 --> 01:22:11,236 and that's the important thing in life. 1609 01:22:11,271 --> 01:22:13,411 Kevin Lunney always had the respect. 1610 01:22:13,445 --> 01:22:16,172 [crowd cheers] 1611 01:22:22,247 --> 01:22:24,767 [gentle music] 1612 01:22:32,809 --> 01:22:36,261 [gentle music continues] 1613 01:22:45,270 --> 01:22:47,790 I don't think that anybody, regardless of what 1614 01:22:47,824 --> 01:22:49,757 whether denied, they should have stooped to the level 1615 01:22:49,792 --> 01:22:50,827 of what they've done to Kevin Lunney, 1616 01:22:50,862 --> 01:22:53,037 that should never have happened. 1617 01:22:53,071 --> 01:22:55,901 Human beings don't do that to each other. 1618 01:22:55,936 --> 01:22:58,766 But there'll be doubts in people's minds, you know, Jesus, 1619 01:22:58,801 --> 01:23:01,045 how come the television crews from all over Ireland 1620 01:23:01,079 --> 01:23:02,494 promoting this thing about Sean Quinn, 1621 01:23:02,529 --> 01:23:06,395 and he was responsible for the abduction of Kevin Lunney. 1622 01:23:06,429 --> 01:23:07,396 People do believe that. 1623 01:23:11,883 --> 01:23:13,989 - [Father] I now believe that there has been 1624 01:23:14,023 --> 01:23:17,785 a mafia style group, with it's own Godfather 1625 01:23:17,820 --> 01:23:22,514 operating in our region for some time and it's serious. 1626 01:23:27,554 --> 01:23:30,522 This well planned and well organized abduction 1627 01:23:30,557 --> 01:23:33,801 could only have happened if some person 1628 01:23:33,836 --> 01:23:38,047 with ulterior motives agreed to pay these criminals 1629 01:23:38,082 --> 01:23:41,602 a sum of money and gave instruction of what he required 1630 01:23:41,637 --> 01:23:44,329 be to done to an unsuspecting victim. 1631 01:23:50,542 --> 01:23:55,306 Some devious people are so consumed with hatred and emnity 1632 01:23:55,340 --> 01:23:59,241 that they lose their moral compass and are prepared 1633 01:23:59,275 --> 01:24:01,277 to hire the most ruthless of criminals 1634 01:24:01,312 --> 01:24:03,935 to achieve their sinister goals. 1635 01:24:05,109 --> 01:24:08,284 They also become compulsive liars. 1636 01:24:12,185 --> 01:24:15,291 This region deserves better. 1637 01:24:15,326 --> 01:24:18,536 This region and its resources belong to all 1638 01:24:18,570 --> 01:24:20,676 its hardworking citizens. 1639 01:24:21,746 --> 01:24:24,473 [crowd applauds] 1640 01:24:30,755 --> 01:24:32,757 - Every morning you get up, it's no different 1641 01:24:32,791 --> 01:24:35,622 and it's just this heavy load every morning 1642 01:24:37,141 --> 01:24:40,109 and enormous pressure, yeah. 1643 01:24:41,317 --> 01:24:43,733 And it translate on to children, I think, 1644 01:24:43,768 --> 01:24:48,359 and everybody in the house because everyone is in bad form. 1645 01:24:53,157 --> 01:24:55,400 - You know, what they've done to us is unbelievable. 1646 01:24:55,435 --> 01:24:57,264 It was hard to believe they'd go and try to take 1647 01:24:57,299 --> 01:24:58,679 the business off us. 1648 01:24:58,714 --> 01:25:00,750 But now to try to make us criminals being involved 1649 01:25:00,785 --> 01:25:02,304 in Kevin Lunney's attack. 1650 01:25:06,584 --> 01:25:08,206 Don't worry about the boys that done it. 1651 01:25:08,241 --> 01:25:09,518 Get Sean Quinn. 1652 01:25:09,552 --> 01:25:11,589 Get the big, get to whoever's paying the money. 1653 01:25:13,073 --> 01:25:15,558 [gentle music] 1654 01:25:17,422 --> 01:25:18,837 The people have to believe it. 1655 01:25:20,391 --> 01:25:22,496 They have to believe that there's something in this. 1656 01:25:22,531 --> 01:25:24,326 Surely the priest wouldn't be getting up on the altar 1657 01:25:24,360 --> 01:25:27,260 and blaming Sean Quinn if he wasn't involved somewhere. 1658 01:25:31,988 --> 01:25:34,646 [gentle music] 1659 01:25:42,654 --> 01:25:45,968 [gentle music continues] 1660 01:25:51,007 --> 01:25:53,320 - [Gavin] The further distance you take from it, 1661 01:25:53,355 --> 01:25:56,565 it becomes this kind of clear cut case of a guy 1662 01:25:56,599 --> 01:26:01,017 who over borrowed, made this crazy bet 1663 01:26:01,052 --> 01:26:04,607 on a single share of a single bank 1664 01:26:04,642 --> 01:26:07,645 and then had to be bailed out by that same bank. 1665 01:26:07,679 --> 01:26:10,786 And that's just seen as so toxic. 1666 01:26:12,236 --> 01:26:14,238 It's not black and white. 1667 01:26:14,272 --> 01:26:16,619 The legacy of the businesses will always be there 1668 01:26:16,654 --> 01:26:18,552 for the people who work in them and for their families 1669 01:26:18,587 --> 01:26:21,072 and for the local area. 1670 01:26:21,106 --> 01:26:24,593 But there's some pretty big missteps that can, 1671 01:26:24,627 --> 01:26:26,664 couldn't, can't ever be forgotten. 1672 01:26:30,668 --> 01:26:33,222 - [Fintan] For all my criticisms of Sean Quinn, 1673 01:26:33,257 --> 01:26:35,466 I think the thing you can't take away from him 1674 01:26:35,500 --> 01:26:40,505 is that he put a lot of backbone into communities 1675 01:26:42,542 --> 01:26:47,029 that had been abandoned and abused. 1676 01:26:47,063 --> 01:26:48,755 Made them feel that they mattered. 1677 01:26:49,928 --> 01:26:54,726 And I think the strengths of purpose 1678 01:26:54,761 --> 01:26:56,038 that we've been getting 1679 01:26:56,072 --> 01:26:59,006 from those border communities over the Brexit crisis 1680 01:26:59,041 --> 01:27:01,906 has at least something to do with the legacy of Sean Quinn. 1681 01:27:11,156 --> 01:27:14,021 - The words that come to mind when I think of Sean Quinn 1682 01:27:14,056 --> 01:27:16,645 are delusion and defiance. 1683 01:27:16,679 --> 01:27:20,407 I often felt looking at those children at the beginning 1684 01:27:20,442 --> 01:27:22,409 of their adult lives when they were getting married, 1685 01:27:22,444 --> 01:27:26,689 having their first babies, for them to have to go through 1686 01:27:26,724 --> 01:27:29,968 close to a decade of living under that pressure 1687 01:27:30,866 --> 01:27:32,108 in those circumstances. 1688 01:27:32,143 --> 01:27:36,527 And for a father to have put them through that 1689 01:27:36,561 --> 01:27:40,531 because of his own determination and his own delusion. 1690 01:27:40,565 --> 01:27:44,914 And because of some misguided concept of 1691 01:27:44,949 --> 01:27:46,916 mafia-like family loyalty, 1692 01:27:48,401 --> 01:27:50,299 that to me just strikes me as being sad. 1693 01:27:50,334 --> 01:27:52,888 I mean, this at the end of the day is a tragedy, really. 1694 01:27:52,922 --> 01:27:56,305 And I don't think there are any winners, 1695 01:27:56,340 --> 01:27:57,720 certainly not among the Quinns. 1696 01:27:59,343 --> 01:28:02,207 - I think he deserves to be remembered as somebody who 1697 01:28:02,242 --> 01:28:06,729 achieved a remarkable economic revitalization 1698 01:28:06,764 --> 01:28:09,732 of a very depressed area of the country. 1699 01:28:09,767 --> 01:28:12,010 And the footnote will have to be that 1700 01:28:12,045 --> 01:28:15,151 the great pity is that he gambled it all away. 1701 01:28:16,912 --> 01:28:20,122 - I'm delighted to unveil Mannok as a new brand 1702 01:28:20,156 --> 01:28:22,297 of the business moving forward. 1703 01:28:22,331 --> 01:28:24,816 This marks a significant step. 1704 01:28:24,851 --> 01:28:27,785 It's the roots of where this business has come from 1705 01:28:27,819 --> 01:28:31,133 and it's to reflect that in the new name. 1706 01:28:55,847 --> 01:28:58,574 [gentle music] 1707 01:29:06,410 --> 01:29:09,758 [gentle music continues] 1708 01:29:17,904 --> 01:29:20,596 [gentle music] 1709 01:29:25,843 --> 01:29:30,606 - All I can say is that in my 75 years, 1710 01:29:31,607 --> 01:29:33,126 I never knowingly, 1711 01:29:36,094 --> 01:29:39,097 [Sean sobs quietly] 1712 01:29:45,241 --> 01:29:48,452 I never knowingly took anything that didn't belong to me. 1713 01:29:49,798 --> 01:29:50,592 Never. 1714 01:29:55,873 --> 01:29:58,669 [gentle music] 1715 01:30:00,498 --> 01:30:03,915 I think my legacy will be that, uh-- 1716 01:30:05,503 --> 01:30:07,229 I built up a great company. 1717 01:30:07,263 --> 01:30:10,681 I employed a lot of people in a very poor area. 1718 01:30:12,924 --> 01:30:14,443 I was an honest man 1719 01:30:16,238 --> 01:30:18,447 and that the area 1720 01:30:18,482 --> 01:30:22,796 would be more successful because of Sean Quinn 1721 01:30:22,831 --> 01:30:24,764 than it would be without him. 1722 01:30:25,972 --> 01:30:27,870 And that he got rough justice. 1723 01:30:33,876 --> 01:30:36,500 - Okay? - [Interviewer] Yep we're done. 1724 01:30:41,090 --> 01:30:43,748 [gentle music] 1725 01:30:51,929 --> 01:30:55,208 [gentle music continues] 1726 01:31:03,285 --> 01:31:05,943 [gentle music] 1727 01:31:13,985 --> 01:31:17,472 [gentle music continues] 1728 01:31:25,514 --> 01:31:27,965 [gentle music] 1729 01:31:36,456 --> 01:31:39,977 [gentle music continues] 1730 01:31:47,916 --> 01:31:50,953 [gentle music ends]