Sean Quinn, In My Own Words, the new autobiography by the industrialist, begins with a description of his childhood and ends with the former billionaire offering his perspective on everything from the property crisis, the potential impact of climate change on Ireland’s population, and whether the advancements in the world of artificial intelligence could lead to a four-day working week.

However, the book could easily be described by a single word: revisionism.

It is not the first time that Quinn has sought to retell his side of the story; a breathtaking tale of a man who built an empire from a gravel pit on the border before losing it all on a gamble on bank shares and being jailed over his role in an audacious asset-stripping scheme.

While successful, Quinn never courted publicity or gave interviews. It was a strategy that added to his allure and his mystique. However, since he lost his businesses and his fortune, he has been much more talkative. There have been numerous high-profile and lengthy media interviews, multiple public statements, and various open letters. 

He has now sought to rewrite the narrative once again, committing his version of his rise and fall to papers across 242 pages. 

Throughout it all, Quinn seeks to take credit for his rise, and apportion blame for his decline. He says he wrote the book so that he can “fade into the shadows”. But he was determined to settle some scores before that.

Quinn is hostile towards regulators, politicians (with the exception of Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan, who he says helped stall the seizure of his manufacturing empire by the former Anglo Irish bank), bankers (both those who lent him billions and those who sought to get the money back), his former top lieutenants who he (wrongly) accuses of betraying him, receivers, administrators, and the media. 

Quinn consistently shifts blame away from himself and his family by claiming they were too involved in the operation of the business to understand what was going on back at headquarters. He attempts to portray himself as a brilliant businessman who left the pesky issue of money and finance to others. 

It is difficult to believe that a man who built such a business could be so naïve, but that is the line that Quinn is spinning.

This is particularly evident when it comes to his family’s efforts to shield €500 million of prime international assets from the clutches of the former Anglo Irish bank, a scheme that led to him (as well as his son) being jailed for contempt of court orders.  

It is worth unpicking what Quinn now says versus what happened during those helter-skelter years a decade ago.

“Out of our depth”

In his book, Quinn outlines how the family made frantic efforts to keep the property assets that he says they bought with their own money. “This required very complex planning, and unfortunately, with neither myself nor my family having ever been involved in this type of administration or planning, it is fair to say that we fell well short in implementing the plan properly,” he writes. 

He then takes a cut at his former executives for who had set up the intricate overseas structure for “fleeing the nest”, before adding: “We were out of our depth and these events did a lot of reputational damage to both me and my family.”

Quinn states that they took advice from solicitors in Russia, where many of the assets were located, to transfer the assets into the names of individuals and companies so they were outside the control of Anglo. He says they trusted that the solicitors would ensure the assets would be returned.

However, he writes that “when Anglo came in and disputed the ownership of the assets, they couldn’t believe their luck. It became very easy for them to take advantage of the situation, and allow two Irish entities to slog it out, while they would keep the assets”.

He adds that when the problem emerged, he sought to cut a deal with Anglo, but the offer was rejected.

So, in the world of Quinn, he handed over the assets to Russian solicitors, who never gave them back.

Now, let’s revisit what we learned through the various litigation in relation to the assets – litigation that the Quinn family vigorously fought in courtrooms all over the world.

First, in order to hollow out the company that Anglo had security over, the assets were transferred into the control of a trusted family member for a nominal fee – in one case a laptop. 

The assets were then shifted into a string of offshore companies that had been acquired in Panama, Belize, the British Virgin Islands and a number of other countries.

These companies were owned by so-called “men of straw”, individuals paid by the Quinns and a number of foreign advisers to own the assets on their behalf. A railway worker, for example, owned a €188 million tower in Russia.

The documents authorising the transfers were backdated to give the impression they were carried out before the court made injunctions preventing any tampering with the assets, according to evidence presented to the High Court.

Quinn claims his family were duped. Anglo, however, claims this was not the case, and the special liquidators would spend years unravelling the money trail.

It would take the nationalised bank close to eight years to regain control of the property empire, and it defended actions in courtrooms in Russia, Cyprus, Sweden and Ukraine. A bank-appointed receiver was forced to do likewise in India.

In addition, the bank was forced to defend or pursue proceedings in Sweden, Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands and Belize. Actions too were taken in Dublin and Belfast.

Anglo’s successor, the IBRC, subsequently obtained information from Quinn’s former advisers in relation to the cash extraction mechanisms used by the Quinn family in the early years of the dispute to obtain rental incomes from properties in Russia, Ukraine, and India.

The evidence was central to the Quinn family’s decision to drop its action mid-case. In return, a deal saw the bank drop its action over the disputed assets. As part of the deal, they promised “full disclosure” in relation to the overseas assets.

Quinn might argue that his family were out of their depth. But as early as 2012, Mr Justice Peter Kelly described it as a “scheme of mesmeric complexity” that reeked of “dishonesty and sharp practice”.

The assets were worth €500 million. It cost the bank in the region of €100 million to get them back. Tens of millions of euro in rental income have never been recovered; some was transferred into gold in Dubai, although it is unclear whether the family knew about or authorised this transaction. 

This is symptomatic of the type of narrative that Quinn tries to weave in the book; of a man with great business instincts who came unstuck because he paid too little attention to financial structures and corporate dealings.

Unfortunately for Quinn, it is a narrative that does not add up.

*****

Elsewhere last week, Stephen had a fascinating and detailed conversation with Philip Lane, the former governor of the Central Bank who is now the chief economist at the European Central Bank. They discussed everything from the latest data on inflation (and potential anomalies Lane sees in the data), the science and art of economic modelling, and monetary policy in the context of climate change and demographic changes across Europe.

Smurfit Kappa announced last week that it was in talks with WestRock over a potential merger that would create a business with an annual turnover of $24 billion. Sean looked at the rationale for the deal.

I caught up with Danny McCoy, the chief executive of Ibec, who argued that the state has a bounty of resources, but a lack of capacity to deploy them. He outlined solutions on how we can bridge the capacity gap and gave his views on housing, education, and what constitutes wealth.

We also launched Family Matters, a new podcast series on the issues impacting family businesses. Hosted by Alison Cowzer, the series is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore. In the first episode, Alison talked to Michael McCambridge of McCambridge Bread, who spoke about taking over the business in a time of adversity.

Kilkenny animal feed manufacturer Connolly’s Red Mills, too, is one of Ireland’s oldest family businesses. For 30 years, Michael Connolly has travelled the world looking for new export markets – but that was after he trained to become a priest. Now based in Dubai, he reflected upon the lessons he learned along the way.