Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 18 June 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Kevin Cardiff:
On that evening, there was clarity. There was no evidence to the contrary to suggest that as of that moment they not only were solvent, on an accounting basis, but that they had additional capital sufficient to meet their capital requirements ... at that particular moment. There was also a strong view from the Financial Regulator that into the future they were going to be okay; not that they'd have no troubles but that they were going to be okay. There was a ... a rush, in the two or three weeks previously, to get views and opinions as to how their loan book was looking, not because there was a worry about whether they were solvent on the night, actually is a bit of a side issue, because what happened was not a ... the problem ... we didn't lose money that night; we lost it later in huge amounts. So where are they going was the issue. And if I just run through them, the particular issues ... the particular two big ... the banks with the two most issues at the time were INBS and Anglo. There was a ... an exercise to evaluate INBS by Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs knew the business somewhat because they'd already been doing work for INBS. The regulator took advantage of that and said, "Okay, so you're in there, you know the business. Now we want you to stop working for INBS, contract with us and give us advice." And INBS, I suspect, agreed it had to be-----
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