Anglo Irish Bank tapes from 2008: "Abuse the bank guarantee, don't get caught"

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Irish Independent has obtained tapes of conversations of Anglo Irish Bank executives as the 2008 bailout proceeded. It's hard to know where to begin:

ANGLO Irish Bank boss David Drumm laughed about "abusing" the bank guarantee and warned his executives not to be caught abusing it, the Anglo Tapes reveal.
...
Mr Drumm can be heard laughing at the financial regulator's concerns about being seen internationally to be "abusing" the bank guarantee in late 2008.

"We won't do anything blatant, but . . . we have to get the money in . . . get the f***in' money in, get it in," he tells his senior manager, John Bowe.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/abuse-the-bank-guarantee-dont-get-caught-david-drumm-29369275.html

Ireland's rage over Anglo-Irish rescue revelations is justified – Enda Kenny

Irish taxpayers were eventually forced to hand over €30bn to save Anglo Irish Bank from collapse. The huge bailout resulted in the state going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the EU to save the country from bankruptcy.

The audio recordings, obtained by the Irish Independent, are between Anglo's director of capital markets, John Bowe, and Peter Fitzgerald, head of the retail bank, in September 2008. Initially the bank asked Ireland's central bank for €7bn to prop up its parlous finances following the Irish property crash. Critics of the bailout have insisted Anglo executives always knew the figure would be far higher – ultimately more than four times higher.

On tape Fitzgerald asks Bowe how he arrived at the figure of €7bn, to which Bowe replies: "Just as Drummer (the then Anglo Irish Bank CEO David Drumm now in exile and disgrace in Boston) would say, 'picked it out my arse'."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/24/anglo-irish-bankers-taped-recordings1

‘So, (the loan) is bridged, until we can pay you back . . . which is never’

He later goes on to say that the bank is facing a liquidity problem (ie it has cash-flow problems) and needs money to buy time. “And that number is seven (€7 billion). But the reality is that actually we need more than that. But you know, the strategy here is, you pull them in, you get them to write a big cheque, and they have to keep, they have to support their money, you know?”

Fitzgerald: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’ve got skin in the game and that’s the key.”

Bowe said that if the Central Bank knew the “enormity of it upfront, they might decide, they might decide they have a choice. You know what I mean? They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high. But if it doesn’t look too big at the outset . . . If it looks big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything . . . Then I think you have a chance. So I think it can creep up.”
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The two bankers discuss the fact that the money being sought is to be a “bridging loan”. Bowe: “So, it is bridged, until we can pay you back . . . which is never.” Both men laugh at this point.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/so-the-loan-is-bridged-until-we-can-pay-you-back-which-is-never-1.1441440

[idwiyo]

1. Business as usual.