Elites know they’ve made it to the top of Irish society when their surname becomes redundant, and most people refer to them solely by their first name. When somebody says something about Enda, we all know who they are likely talking about. The same goes for Bertie, Lucinda, Miriam or Roy.
To those who know him well, and to many more in business and media who don’t, Denis O’Brien is most often referred to simply as Denis, Ireland’s richest and most powerful businessman and, latterly, one of its foremost litigants.
However, in the acres upon acres of court documents that have been filed as part of the State corporate watchdog’s attempt to appoint High Court inspectors to investigate Independent News & Media (INM), he is most commonly referred to by another, rather less clubby, sobriquet: “the major shareholder”.
It doesn’t really matter what you call him. Whichever way the sprawling INM story twists or turns, and its apparent focus on the actions of other people, his spectre remains at the heart of it.
On April 19th, as O'Brien was celebrating his 60th birthday, solicitors for Leslie Buckley, INM's former chairman and a board nominee of the major shareholder, sent an angry missive to INM's lawyers that lit the fuse on the disintegration of Buckley's relationship with the company where his ally owns 30 per cent.
Buckley was upset about a letter INM had sent to the so-called INM 19 cohort just over a week earlier, effectively blaming him for the secret and “unauthorised” searching of their data on INM’s IT servers.
As Ian Drennan, the director of corporate enforcement, pointed out in an explosive court filing, many of the 19 had crossed paths – and sometimes swords – with INM's major shareholder. The "improper" data search is a central plank of Drennan's argument for why inspectors must be allowed root through INM.
The April 19th letter sparked a flurry of correspondence between Buckley’s lawyers and INM’s, culminating in a legal threat in late May to hold the former chairman responsible for any damage caused by the data interrogation.
The publisher’s lawyers alleged that the data search on the INM 19 was not apparently for a “cost-reduction exercise”, as previously stated by Buckley to investigators. Rather it was for an “ulterior motive”. What could that be?
“This also raises the issue of whether the searching was conducted for and on behalf of the major shareholder of INM and for his personal benefit,” wrote INM’s lawyers, in a letter attached to an affidavit opened in court.
What an extraordinary thing for the legal representatives of the State’s biggest news publisher to suggest about its biggest shareholder: whether Buckley secretly orchestrated access to the personal data of a range of prominent Irish individuals for the “personal benefit” of O’Brien.
It is a pertinent question, given the fact that one of O’Brien’s companies paid the bill for the data search operation, unbeknownst to the rest of INM’s board. As of yet, it is also unanswered.
There have been more than 30 affidavits filed as part of Drennan’s application for inspectors. You could wallpaper Liberty Hall with the voluminous filings. O’Brien, however, has yet to say anything of substance on the matter.
We asked him to respond to the suggestion by INM’s lawyers about whether the data search was for his benefit, but he hasn’t responded.
A week after INM’s lawyers posited their suggestion about O’Brien to Buckley’s lawyers, Drennan filed another affidavit that has since been opened in court. In it, he makes another suggestion that you would imagine has caught the attention of O’Brien: “[The question arises] whether the data interrogation was part of a broader use of INM for the benefit of the major shareholder.”
Again, this is an extraordinary potential theory for the State’s most senior corporate investigator to suggest in a filing to one of the highest courts in the land. Yet again, O’Brien has yet to respond.
Drennan has told the High Court that he wants inspectors to be appointed to INM to obtain evidence, under oath if necessary, from a range of individuals, including “The Major Shareholder”.
At this stage, INM – and probably O’Brien himself – might be better off if he was not a shareholder at all.
Throughout this whole rambling, jaw-dropping, incredible story, INM’s corporate governance standards have been the steak. But O’Brien’s involvement is the sauce. The story has attracted so much attention primarily because his name is attached.
Would we care so much about outside contractors quietly rifling through the personal data of journalists and lawyers, if the operation had not been paid for by Ireland’s richest man? Arguably, its most powerful man. Certainly, one of its most determined, successful and relentless business operators.
No matter what INM does at the moment, it cannot shake itself free from this affair. It should be focused on developing its digital business model and building a viable future in a world dominated by Google and Facebook. Yet here it is, swamped in a media circus that is fuelled by yet another State investigation of events that involve a company controlled by O’Brien.
INM’s major shareholder owns close to a third of the business, yet he no longer has any board representation. But it seems he doesn’t intend going anywhere.
According to reports that first emerged in the Sunday Times, O'Brien now wants Kieran Mulvey, the industrial relations troubleshooter who is a director of the Frontline Defenders charity that O'Brien co-founded, appointed to represents his interests on INM's board.
In INM’s interests, O’Brien should probably just walk away.
FOOTNOTES
Primark takes US retail by surprise
Primark’s coup in being named the fastest-growing retailer in the United States by the giant National Retail Federation has caught the rest of the industry there by surprise.
The fast-fashion chain beat more illustrious rivals, such as Amazon, to claim top spot on the NRF’s Hot 100, which assesses the fastest-growing retailers across the world’s biggest consumer market according to sales growth as a percentage of the previous year’s sales. The threshold for entry is $300 million annual revenues. Primark’s US sales grew by 103 per cent last year, says NRF.
This method of calculation obviously displays a bias towards upstart retailers that are expanding from a smaller base, such as Primark, rather than larger retailers whose percentage growth has slowed, but in dollar terms is gaining strength, such as Amazon.
Just because Primark sits atop the Hot 100, it doesn’t automatically follow that it is in the best position as far as shareholders are concerned. Still, the publicity and “who the heck is Primark” head-scratching that is happening across the US apparel industry is gold dust for the Irish retailer, which, in the US, lacks the instantaneous recognition it has across much of Europe, and in Ireland as Penneys.
Even though it is, on paper, the “fastest” growing retailer in the US, it is still one of the most cautious. Primark still only has nine stores clustered in the northeast of the US after a three-year foray. Now that Primark’s name is out there and the element of surprise is gone, why not go for broke, and accelerate the rollout with a fast-paced expansion to match its fast fashion?
Fast food with bets on the side
In Ireland, most of us are yet to be acquainted with Buffalo Wild Wings, the huge US fast-dining and sportsbar chain whose delicacies include the "Monster Pulled Pork Cuban sandwich". But perhaps it is time for them to meet Paddy.
The chain, which has 1,300 outlets, mostly in the US but also in Asia, has revealed it wants to hook up with a betting partner to potentially roll out in-restaurant betting.
Paddy Power Betfair has been building up its position in the US market since the early summer, when a US supreme court ruling relaxed the federal ban on sports betting. For established European bookmakers, the US is now the Promised Land.
In-restaurant sports gaming might be the golden opportunity that could really give Paddy Power wings. Here’s your burger, sir... Would you like an each-way with that?
