Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Context Phase

Mr. Simon Carswell:

It was 2007 and into 2008. There were a number of brokers in that firm who said, "We think Anglo has reached the peak of the market and it is no longer a stock that we would tip to our investor clients." Anglo had a reputation for aggressively attacking any dissent in the market and it responded very negatively when it heard through investors in the investment community that there were a number of brokers who were saying to their clients, "No longer back Anglo." Many international investors took interest in it. Often when there is a contrarian in the investment market who puts its head up and says, "We have changed our view in contrast to everyone else," many of the more high-risk investors would think that is worth looking at and as a result some of those people would either start looking at shorting the stock, which is making money from the share price falling. I think the response of Anglo was, "We need to fight that, we need to counter that very negative talk against the bank in the market."