BUSINESS: John McManus trawls through the Ansbacher report and provides background information about those who feature prominently in it
In the Dublin of the late 1970s a group of smart young accountants were making a name for themselves. Alex Spain and Don Reid are now elder statesmen of Irish business, while Conor Crowley died in 1999.
Back then they were hustling for business and building the medium-sized firm of Kennedy Crowley in what is now the Irish arm of KPMG, one of the world's largest accountancy firms.
Mr Spain is now chairman of industrial holding company DCC among other interests. Similarly, Mr Reid has various directorships and is a former chairman of The Irish Times.
The names of Mr Spain and Mr Reid also pepper the 10,000 pages of the Ansbacher report, primarily as advisers to many of the depositors, and in the case of Mr Spain as a client of the late Des Traynor in his own right. The Kennedy Crowley accountancy practice seemed to provide a number of links between the group of businessmen who star in one of the many sub-plots of the Ansbacher story: Traynor's business clients.
The firm rivalled the CRH boardroom, the construction industry and the medical profession as a source of business for Des Traynor and his Cayman Island banking operation. For example, Mr Spain and SKC provide a connection between Mr Neil McCann, the chairman of Fyffes, and Mr Neil Collins, a Cork-based Ansbacher account-holder.
In 1973 Mr McCann agreed to sell his interest in the Dundalk Shopping Centre to Mr Collins. Mr Spain was a co-investor in the shopping centre along with Mr Phil Monahan, the property developer.
Documents uncovered by the inspectors indicate that the transfer was to be achieved by transferring Mr McCann's interest in an Ansbacher-related trust to Mr Collins.
Mr McCann told the inspectors the letter in question was furnished to him by SKC, who remain his financial advisers. Fruit Importers of Ireland, the company owned by Mr McCann which ultimately became Fyffes, has also been identified as a depositor with Ansbacher. Mr McCann said yesterday he never had an Ansbacher account and the trust connected to him was not in breach of any law.
A former deputy chief executive of Fyffes, Mr Patrick McNamee was the beneficial owner of funds on deposit with Ansbacher. He told the inspectors he contacted Guinness & Mahon on the advice of Mr McCann or his son Carl, the finance director and a former SKC accountant.
Mr Collins's involvement in Ansbacher goes back even further. He was a nephew of Mr Con Neenan, an Irish-American who made a fortune distributing Sweepstake tickets in the US.
Mr Collins, together with his brother Patrick Finbarr or Barrie, inherited a significant amount of money from Mr Neenan which he told the inspectors he kept off-shore in the Caymans on the advice of SKC. Mr Collins - who has been linked to a handful of accounts - also features in the report as one of three directors of Atlantic Resources who used Ansbacher to secretly buy and sell shares in the company, albeit at a significant loss.
Mr Traynor used an Ansbacher-related vehicle called Ascot for some of the Atlantic deals and Ascot crops up again in connection with Capt Tim Rogers, a well-known stallion owner and stud farmer who died in 1984. Capt Rogers established an Ansbacher trust that dealt in bloodstock through Ascot Holdings. His widow, Mrs Sonia Rogers, cited Conor Crowley and SKC as being involved in the administration of her trust.
Mr Collins was just one of a number of Cork businessmen who were clients of Ansbacher. Among them is Mr Clayton Love jun, a former non-executive director of Guinness & Mahon. He established a trust on the advice of Mr Traynor in 1971 and, although he has denied it, is deemed by the inspectors to be a client of the bank. Along with Mr Collins and three other Cork businessmen, Mr Love availed of the bank's services for an unsuccessful property development in the US. The others were the late Mr Hugh Coveney TD, Mr Pat Dineen (a former chairman of Bord na Móna) and Mr Francis Boland, the chairman of the Port of Cork Company. Another Cork connection was Mr Richard Wood, whose father established a trust - along with some other businessmen - in the 1970s. Mr Wood is a former trustee of The Irish Times.
Back in Dublin, Mr Reid of SKC was an adviser to the builder, Mr George Crampton of G&E Crampton, who put money in a trust on foot of Mr Reid's advice (given after taking legal opinion) that it was not tax evasion. Numerous other builders were clients of Ansbacher, including the brothers Edward and James Lynam who opened an account in 1987. The account was subsequently divided among their children including Ms Eileen Lynam, who was until recently the personal assistant of the editor of The Irish Times.
Although he appears to have been only too happy to deal with business referred to him by SKC, Mr Traynor was not short of his own contacts in the wider business community from which to drum up business.
The motor industry also appears to have been something of a nexus for Traynor's clients. Three well-known figures in the industry have been linked to the Ansbacher accounts.
They include Mr Brian Dennis of HB Dennis Motors, who transferred money into a Cayman Island trust set up for him in 1972. Mr Harold Murray, the founder of the Murray group of car rental and sales companies, established a Jersey-based trust in 1974 which was later channelled through Ansbacher. The money - declared under the 1994 amnesty - was used to back loans for the company. Mr Ray Carroll, the former chief executive of the group, also had an interest in the money.
Mr Joseph Turley, a director of Rathdown Motors, is also listed as a depositor. He had a number of loans secured against funds held by Ansbacher, although denied under oath having any connection with the bank.
Two well-known businesses from the period also crop up, Odearest and Super Ser. Mr Denis McCarthy, the managing director and chairman of bed manufacturer Odearest, had the good fortune - as it may have seemed at the time - of sitting beside Mr Traynor at a dinner party. He subsequently gave Mr Traynor the proceeds of a horse sale to invest and ended up as a client of Ansbacher. Mr McCarthy is a non-executive director of Eagle Star and on the board of Beaumont Hospital, as well as involved in the Turf Club.
Another businessman with connections to horse racing that crops up is Mr John Mulhern, the son-in-law of the former taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey. Mr Mulhern - who owns the frozen food company Clayton Love Distribution - gave somewhat contradictory evidence to the inspectors, who said this "called into question" the extent to which they could rely on his evidence. He had a number of loans backed by Ansbacher deposits.
The two founders of heater manufacturer Super Ser were also clients of Ansbacher. Mr Christopher Goosen invested his share of the proceeds of the sale of the business with Ansbacher, while Mr Harry Lindsay used the bank when working in Bangladesh.
The meat industry is not that well represented among Mr Traynor's clients, with the Waterford-based cattle trader Mr Séamus Purcell the sole representative. Mr Purcell used the bank extensively for international trading and had an overseas dollar account through which secret commissions were paid to agents. Mr Purcell told the inspectors he was not advised by Guinness & Mahon of any breach of exchange control regulations and he left all of that to the bank.