Firesale bidding starts as budget vote beckons

It was less than edifying to note, on the day before Ireland’s unconstitutional budget is to be rubberstamped by the Dáil, that foreign private equity firms are starting to cast a greedy eye over the Irish banking sector in anticipation of the bargain bonanza that Irish poverty will guarantee for international financiers.

J Christopher Flowers: Smug merchant banker
and probably soon to be a member of Ireland's
new, unelected, asbsentee ruling class

According to Bloomberg this morning, “Bank of Ireland soared in Dublin trading as J. Christopher Flowers, founder of New York private- equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co, signalled he is continuing to look for Irish banking assets.”

And why wouldn’t he? Flowers told the Financial Times today that a stake in Allied Irish or Bank of Ireland, the country’s biggest lenders, may be attractive depending on government guarantees on potential losses from toxic assets...That, for our purposes is the operative term; ‘depending on government guarantees’...

So just who the hell is J Christopher Flowers anyway? Does he have the welfare of the Irish people in the forefront of his mind or is he just another private equity asset stripper? This is what the Deptford Croppy found out, you can make up your own mind...

According to his Forbes profile, J Christopher Flowers is 52 years old and has been a director of Enstar since November 2001. Mr. Flowers is also the chairman and chief executive officer of J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, the financial services investment advisory firm he founded in 2000.

In the past, he also has been head of the Financial Institutions Group at Goldman Sachs, a group he helped found in 1986. Forbes also lists numerous financial companies where he sits on the board.

J Christopher Flowers also holds the distinction of buying New York’s most expensive townhouse in 2006 when he paid $53 million for Harkness Mansion.

Funnily enough, when one does a search using the words 'J Christophers Flowers' and 'Philanthropy', one really does come up snake eyes, apart of course from honourable mentions in the New York Social Diary for turning up at whatever bun-fights the smart Manhattan set happened to be patronising.

And here’s another little snippet of market intelligence: “Potential acquirers are likely to want to purchase Irish banking assets at a discount to book value even with the loan loss guarantees, and this could drive up further capital requirements in Irish banks," according to an analyst with Dublin’s Goodbody Stockbrokers. In other words, they know they’re getting a bargain but also know that the Irish Gombeens will just have to take what they are given....

Probably not much of surprise to note either that during this catastrophe, Anglo-Irish and AIB continued to give their staffs bonuses ultimately paid for by the plain people of Ireland.

So now, even as this doomed and discredited government prepares to end on a high note of corruption and illegitimacy by passing a budget which binds the people without consultation or plebescite, the world of international finance jockeys to pick up the best bargains from the flotsam and jetsam of the Irish economy....

If that, my Irish bredrin, doesn’t make you mad enough to turn up at Leinster House tomorrow, then perhaps timid readers (and please don't take this the wrong way), bonded servitude is actually no more than you deserve.