Ireland on Brink as ‘Beggar’ for Aid After Losses by Fingleton

[marmar]

Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- As a young accountant, Michael Fingleton took his do-it-yourself attitude from Dublin to Lagos, Nigeria, to sort out the finances of the Catholic archdiocese.

“He stayed for a year and a half, cleaned up the books and put in a system to allow them to keep it up after he left,” said John O’Loughlin Kennedy, co-founder of the charity Concern Worldwide and a friend of the Irish priest who asked Fingleton for help in the late 1960s. “He did a very good job.”

That same can-do spirit enabled Fingleton, now 72, to turn what was a century-old Irish lender with six employees when he joined in 1971 into a firm with 16.1 billion euros ($22.2 billion) of assets at its height in 2007. It also led Dublin- based Irish Nationwide Building Society to put too much power in one man’s hands, with too few risk controls, according to a May report by Irish Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan.

Fingleton’s rise and fall, and that of Irish Nationwide, is a microcosm of the financial catastrophe that led to a bailout of five of the country’s biggest lenders. Customer-owned Irish Nationwide, which began much like George Bailey’s Building and Loan in the 1946 movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” is hooked to a 5.4 billion-euro lifeline of taxpayer money to help it avoid bankruptcy. The government seized control of the company this year and is looking to sell or merge it with another firm.

‘Crazy Loans’

Meanwhile, the end of a decade-long property boom, fanned by reckless bank lending to developers and home buyers, plunged Ireland into the worst recession since at least 1947. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aEzBmzzOjxE8&pos=11