Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Eugene Sheehy:

Yes, I can address that particular statement if you want. That was in October 2008, in a public meeting, and an individual asked me, you know, "Are you about to have a rights issue?" Now, it's very simple rules in corporate governance about what you do if you're a public company. There's also lots of documents you will have seen that we were adequately capitalised at the time. If a board had decided to raise funds in a share placement with customers, you would have to immediately announce that.

At the time we were looking at capital, and we had a whole range of mitigants that we thought we could apply. We were a long, long way from ever having to, at that stage, ask shareholders to pay up. At the time there was an active shorting in the market, and a huge amount of speculation on bank shares in Ireland that were being played out of London and New York. I had to be very definite and honest in my response. Sorry, I lost the first part?