Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 September 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Gary McGann:

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that the model in its, kind of, in totality, was flawed. It certainly was a model that had challenges. I think businesses in general - and I'm mindful that banks need particular attention - but businesses in general that have a narrow product range have inherent risk. Ironically, in the business I've run for 13 years as CEO and 17 years as an executive in the world of packaging, which is very far removed from banking, I accept, but we have a very narrow product range and the equity markets love it, because it's high-concentration expertise in a narrow area, deep and meaningful engagement. The debt markets don't like it because obviously of the higher risk attached to it. The way we dealt with it in my current business is we widened the geographic spread so that we actually got the portfolio effect of geography in terms of the de-risking of it. In the Anglo case, again, the product range or the product area was narrow but there were significant moves afoot to widen the application of that both in terms of product and in terms of geography. And it was evolving over time but not quickly enough.

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