Charge on Quinn company's shares made in favour of Anglo

A CHARGE on the shares of a Jersey-based company belonging to the Quinn family in favour of Anglo Irish Bank was registered in the Companies Registration Office in Dublin in late January last year.

The charge on the shares in Quinn Finance Holdings (Jersey) Ltd was filed by Quinn Finance Holding, an unlimited Irish-registered company.

The shareholders of the company, who are Seán Quinn and members of his immediate family, passed a resolution on July 25th, 2008 that restricted dealings in the shares and granted extra comforts to the holders of charges on the shares.

In July of last year, the Quinn family was involved in the purchase of 15 per cent of Anglo Irish Bank, shares which had been held up to then by institutions with which the family had contracts for difference (CFDs) on the shares.

Charges were taken out by Anglo on July 9th on shares in the Quinn Group holding company. The charges included a charge on preference shares that would, on default, have given the bank control of the board of the Quinn Group holding company. These shares were redeemed on July 28th.

Mr Quinn has said the family lost close to €1 billion on its CFD involvement and it may be the case that more than half that again was invested in the 15 per cent shareholding bought last July. The bank has since been nationalised.

Quinn Finance, a subsidiary of Quinn Finance Holding, is a 52 per cent shareholder in a holding company in Sweden through which the Quinn family has extensive property interests in central Europe and Russia, filings in Stockholm indicate.

The holding company, Quinn Investments Sweden, had assets of 1.4 billion Swedish kroner (€127 million) in December 2007, the end date of its latest available set of consolidated accounts.

The holding company was registered in August 2005 and is based in Stockholm.

Its managing director is Liam McCaffrey and the other directors on the board are Mr Quinn, Kevin Lunney, John Dara O’Reilly and Peter Darragh Quinn. The auditors are PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The holding company has 47 registered subsidiaries, most of them based in Sweden but some in Ukraine, Cyprus, Turkey and the Czech Republic.

One of the Swedish subsidiaries, Quinn Hotels, is involved in property and hotel developments in India.

The holding company is owned by Quinn Finance Ltd (52 per cent), according to the Swedish filings and six Quinn Holdings companies (numbered 1 to 6) based in Sweden.

The latest accounts of Quinn Property Management Ltd, an Irish Quinn Group subsidiary, state it had transactions with related parties during 2007 that included transactions with Quinn Investments Sweden.

The closing balance at the end of the year was €11.5 million. It also had dealings with Quinn Holdings Sweden and Quinn Logistics Sweden.

PwC’s website in Sweden says it is a good location to set up holding companies. “Dividends received on holdings in Swedish companies are tax exempted,” it states.