“Quinn is trying to scare us into thinking these bondholders are going to come in…”

From the Irish Times…

David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, believed Seán Quinn was trying to “scare” the bank into lending him more money as the financial crisis deepened in June 2008.

Tape recordings of conversations between bankers inside Anglo reveal the bank believed Mr Quinn was threatening it to keep funding his position in Anglo, which was held using contracts for difference (CFDs), or risk his international bondholders seizing control of his empire.

This would destroy any chance Anglo had of recovering its loans to Quinn which by June 20th, 2008, were more than €1 billion.

“He is trying to scare us into thinking these bondholders are going to come in, open the whole kimono on his personal stuff – the CFDs – and it’s all going to get out. He’s actually trying to scare us into lending him money which I’m just not going to do,” Mr Drumm says on the tapes.

Anglo later that month continued to lend to Mr Quinn. The Co Fermanagh businessman has since claimed it was Anglo that was putting pressure on him to keep punting on its shares in order to prevent the bank collapsing.

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Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty