Or named at least. Hard not to see how it wasn’t criminal.
The fact that the employees weren’t thrown under the bus by Davy would suggest they were very senior …
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Boys will be boys
Compliance were “side stepped” that would imply someone came along and said I pay your wages do what you are told
There’ll surely be a rake of resignations of senior directors as they look to distance themselves and protect their reputations 
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Names starting to emerge now. It’s the top guys alright
Every one of them should be sacked immediately. That’s a reckless breach altogether, way worse than the article I read yesterday suggested.
In a normal country you’d be facing jail time for that. It’s fraud
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Davy has declined to comment on the fine, however, in a memo to staff CEO Brian McKiernan said: “We deeply regret and are sorry for the shortcomings that gave rise to the findings which could not recur today.”
I won’t do it again basically
Problem is the company are owned by the top brass and other management so only really answerable to themselves. Be interesting to see view of any independent directors.
The minister can and should issue ask the Guards to investigate
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Yeah I’m sure he’s onto them right now…
I’m sure he will ring them, release a statement about ringing them, they’ll release a statement saying they are investigating it, then nothing will happen and we can all move on with our lives
If you really want to get into the weeds on this, Le Bruin Private mentioned there as brokering the deal was/is run by Tom Browne formerly of Anglo Irish Bank who agreed a 30m settlement with the banks liquidator last month.
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WTF? Davy’s staff purported to be their own client and invested his money to make a profit for themselves?
The wronged party in all of this seems to have been poor auld property developer Paddy Kearney. Paddy had great bouncebackability though
First, Paddy Kearney, PBN Kilmona Holdings Ltd. Mr Kearney is from Belfast but has spent many years in the tax haven of Gibraltar. He would fly to the UK regularly in his private jet to oversee property deals in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. He came into public focus when, in early 2009, he was exposed as a member of the Maple 10 group, which bought shares in the Anglo Irish Bank from Sean Quinn to support Anglo’s share price. The Maple 10 group borrowed €420 million. The mastermind behind the arrangements was Mr Kearney’s close friend Pat Whelan, a director in the Anglo Irish Bank who was later charged and convicted of criminal offences and is awaiting trial on fraud and theft charges. Mr Whelan was, of course, previously mentioned in this evidence presentation in relation to a leaked email I have provided, which demonstrated the discussions between him and Mr Paddy Kearney around the Millmount site.
When NAMA was born in late 2010, the debts of Paddy Kearney’s company, Kilmona Holdings Ltd, were transferred to NAMA. The latest accounts, for the year to 30 June 2014, show a loss of £216 million. That is one of the biggest losses ever recorded by a Northern Ireland company. In addition, the company had a shareholders’ deficit of some £223 million and therefore, to quote, “was hopelessly insolvent and trading unlawfully”. The auditors qualified the accounts as follows:
“With respect to the year end loan balances and loan interest payable, the audit evidence available to us was limited as we were unable to offer sufficient appropriate audit evidence in relation to the loan balances payable at the year end and the loan interest payable in respect of same for the year. The loan balances were taken over by Cerberus from NAMA during the year and we were unable to clarify the year end balances of certain loans from Cerberus. Had this information been available to us we might have formed a different opinion on the financial statements. We are unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding the year end loan balances and loan interest payable by using other audit procedures.”
In essence, therefore, the auditors would not stand over the figures, particularly the level of debt, and the company’s legal advisers, Tughans, made no comment.
At 30 June, the company owed the banks some £334 million. In the vast majority of cases, the borrowers — by now, Cerberus — would have appointed an administrator to sell the company’s assets and pay the proceeds to the banks. Cerberus took a different view. Instead of certain liquidation, it decided to write off in excess of £224 million, which meant that the company only had to repay the lender approximately £110 million. Audited accounts are attached to this evidence to substantiate this.
This money was to be advanced by Jefferies LoanCore, which was on the list of Cerberus’s preferred refinancers. In normal banking practice, one of the key criteria for advancing loans, particularly on property assets, is loan-to-value condition, whereby the property valuation had to be a certain percentage of the loan advanced. In this case, Donall McCann of Lambert Smith Hampton was commissioned by Jefferies LoanCore to value PBM’s assets, which later became Kilmona Holdings’ assets. Lambert Smith Hampton’s original valuation was £85 million, which was clearly not high enough to fund a loan in excess of £100 million. As a consequence, within months, this was increased to £97 million, which was still not sufficient. Eventually, a valuation of £122 million was issued, which secured the loan to Kilmona Holdings Ltd. I believe that this way of doing business by valuers is termed “travelling valuations”. It is somewhat surprising that Lambert Smith Hampton engaged in such activity, particularly given that it had to settle a number of court cases over excessive valuations during the property boom, again when banks wanted higher valuations so that they could lend more. 
A security deed was entered into on 21 January 2015 confirming the transaction that I have just referred to. This, again, is included in the corresponding evidence tab.
In summary, Mr Paddy Kearney was released from his guarantees, and his company was forgiven over £224 million of debt. To celebrate the occasion, Mr Kearney hosted a dinner at a hotel in Carrickfergus, where the principal guest was one Mr Peter Robinson, who said that he appreciated Jefferies LoanCore’s help to property developers. Mr Robinson and Mr Kearney have had a long friendship. Involved in organising the dinner on behalf of Paddy Kearney was a gentleman called Mr Alan Mains. Mr Mains is a former RUC and British intelligence officer who now works as a security consultant. Mr Mains has facilitated meetings between a select group of property developers and Jefferies LoanCore and has been in regular contact with Cerberus through Mr Coggle, who is also a former member of British intelligence, and he got to know Mr Mains during their time in the security services.
Jefferies LoanCore’s support to significantly indebted developers did not stop there. Paddy Kearney was keen to buy the assets of Mr John Miskelly, which included the Ten Square hotel and adjoining properties, and whose loans were again owned by Cerberus. Unlike its approach to Paddy Kearney, Cerberus adopted a very aggressive stance on the repayment of those loans and refused to write off any amount but instead appointed its preferred administrator: Andrew Dolliver of Ernst and Young. Ernst and Young was appointed by Promontoria Eagle Ltd on 20 January 2015. The latter had a secured debt of less than £3 million, which was somewhat less significant than the valuation of the hotel. The first statement of the administrator’s proposals, which is attached, dated 16 March 2015, made some astonishing comments, particularly in view of the treatment of Mr Paddy Kearney, such as that the company was unable to meet its debts: £3 million vis-à-vis £334 million. The primary task of the administrator is to dispose of assets from the initially secured creditors and then unsecured creditors. There is no record of a sales process being carried out, even though a significant number of businessmen had expressed an interest. However, Mr Paddy Kearney was selected as a purchaser not only for Ten Square but for all Mr Miskelly’s assets. The performance of Ernst and Young should be examined by the Committee.
It should be noted at this point that Ernst and Young had hourly rates: there is a table here of those rates. I do not propose to go through it all, and the Committee will see it at the end of the evidence session. For the first six weeks of this work, Ernst and Young charged £52,500 plus VAT for its services.
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Mastermind 
They’re too busy at College Court
We’re only merely existing… not living.
Hard to believe this poor fella was used here… But if the staff at Davy acted alone, they would have had to use, not only Kearney’s money, but his identity and documentation? And what bank account did they use to retrieve their profits?
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It is absolutely fucking outrageous.
In Galway, a large hotel was repossessed on the back of a one (1) million euro debt, and sold to a property group fronted by a local businessman who had gone bankrupt into nama owing hundreds of millions not long at all before.
The country is a fucking cesspit at the top end.
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No, you’ve it wrong.
Mr Kearney had a large number of bonds which would have been difficult to value and hard to sell on the open market. He asked Davy to act on his behalf to sell them. They did, to themselves. For much less than they were worth. And no doubt charged him a serious chunk of commission on the sale as well 
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Ah here/hear.