Given the financial difficulties that The Irish Times is experiencing at the moment it would be extremely silly for this column to give awards for business achievement this year, and so we won't. But if we were going to, they would probably be along the lines of the following:
Businessman of the year would have to be Con Scanlon, the general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, lifelong socialist and chairman of the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Trust. Mr Scanlon expertly played Anthony O'Reilly's Valentia Telecommunications off against Denis O'Brien's eIsland to win a 30 per cent stake in Eircom. This year will present fresh challenges for Mr Scanlon as he tries to reconcile the interests of his members, as Eircom workers, with the interest of the ESOP, as the largest shareholder in the heavily indebted company. The crunch will come if Eircom cannot obtain the headcount reductions it needs in order to cut costs and service debt.
The Mr Congeniality award would go to Michael O'Leary of Ryanair. The events of September 11th changed the airline industry forever and also brought the retiring Mr O'Leary a step closer to his long-term dream of his own terminal at Dublin airport. He now has the support of the Taoiseach, the Tβnaiste and a Government working group. How can he fail? Well, it seems the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke - who he went out of his way to insult during the year - is not for turning. It is hard to see Mr O'Leary getting his terminal until after the next election when, one way or another, a new minister will be appointed.
One potential candidate to succeed Ms O'Rourke could be Derek McDowell, the labour party spokesman on finance who deserves a prize for Most Improved Performance by a Politician in a Supporting Role. After a less than stellar year, he is generally considered to have put in the best performance in the Budget debate. On the topic of the Budget, the finance minister, Charlie McCreevy would be in line for the Dick Turpin Trophy for the most imaginative bankraid of the year.
The Bad Sport of the Year would have to be Fran Rooney, the former Baltimore chief executive. Mr Rooney, who left in June as the share price was plummeting, is suing his former employer, saying his successor was unfair in his criticism of him. He alleges that Bijan Khezri said he "was obsessed with self-importance" and that his salary was "outrageous and unacceptable". Nonsense.
Next there are a couple of contenders for deal of the year, and the sale of the Irish National Petroleum Corporation to Tosco is right up with them, as long as you are a Tosco shareholder. In a brilliant move, the State sold the company's money-making assets for £90 million (€114.28 million) but cleverly hung onto its debts of £70 million and the environmental liabilities. This audacious coup, which has no apparent benefit to the Irish consumer, is all the more admirable when you remember that INPC has invested £88 million in new refining equipment over the past few years. One man who realised he had missed out on a bargain was Jim Flavin the chief executive of DCC, who took the step of writing to the Government complaining that he had not been asked to join the bidding process. Speaking of Mr Flavin, he would get the Banana Skin Award. Just when the fuss appeared to have finally died down about the fortuitous sale by DCC of its Fyffes shares, the company was forced to issue a statement to the stock exchange saying that any investigation into suspected insider trading would find no impropriety.
Denis O'Brien would be strongly favoured for the Business Spouses' Award in recognition of his ability to juggle the demands of rearing a family and appearing at tribunals. Mr O'Brien, it should be remembered, took a unilateral two-week break from the witness box last June following the birth of his second child.
Albert Reynolds should win the Albert Reynolds Peace and Reconciliation award. Having started the year by getting its wrists slapped for apparently overstating its position in Libya, Bula Resources - which is chaired by the former Taoiseach - has finished the year as very best friends with the ruling elite of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Aran Jamahiry. The Gaddafi International Charitable Foundation - which is perhaps better known for negotiating the release of hostages from Islamic militants - is now a 2.2 per cent shareholder. The foundation is run by Said al-Islam Gaddafi and of course is not connected with the less than pro-American state run by his daddy, Col Muammar.
Another man who has had to meet special challenges of working for his dad is Gavin O'Reilly. He finished a tremendous year of achievement with a well deserved promotion to the position of chief operating officer. Only the churlish - and the odd disgruntled Independent Newspaper executive - would say this smacks of nepotism. Shame on them.
Somebody who was definitely not in the right place at the right time by contrast was Michael Foley, who was briefly chief executive of Aer Lingus. In hindsight, it was not so clever to give up selling Heineken in the US to take the joystick at Aer Lingus.
The year saw a number of top legal spats and the Handbags at Dawn award would go to Larry Goodman and Pascal Phelan who have spent many months down at the Four Courts throwing manure at one another. Another regular down at the Four Courts has been Etain Doyle, the telecoms regulator whose combative and legalistic approach to regulation would make her a candidate for the Law library Perpetual Trophy for Services to the Legal Profession. If the tribunals were not sitting, that is.
Finally, a special Outplacement Award for the Central Bank, which, having been made redundant by the euro, found a new career for itself as a financial regulator. The bank was a candidate for the openness and transparency award, but this, as usual, goes to Dermot Desmond. I have told you before Dermot. Don't ring me at work!
jmcmanus@irish-times.ie
