Despite hopes of a big profit, Quinn remains a long way from restoring his tarnished reputation, writes ARTHUR BEESLEY

IN DEFIANCE of severe recession and the loss of more than €1 billion on his poorly-judged investment in Anglo Irish Bank, Seán Quinn has declared that his main holding company remains on track to make a profit of up to €500 million this year.

Such profits, before any once-off items, may go some way towards a restoration of his depleted bank balance after Anglo’s flame-out. But Quinn himself is a long way from restoring his tarnished reputation and damaged credibility.

An employer of 8,000 people in 13 countries, who was for many years deemed to have powers akin to those of Midas himself, his foray into Anglo proved his investment skills to be all too fallible.

Quinn wasn’t the only true believer to be burned in the Anglo debacle – numerous investors were dazzled by the bank’s spectacular expansion – but his losses were truly breathtaking.

He remains the bank’s biggest debtor.

The publication of a quarterly trading update – one of quite limited scope, it must be said – is in line with his ambition to run his business more like a publicly-listed company.

Yet when it comes to his Anglo investment, his spokesman routinely declines to answer questions on the basis that the business is privately-owned.

Quinn was far from being the only mover in the series of events that saw Anglo collapse into the arms of the State four months ago.

But his still-unexplained accumulation of a 25 per cent stake in Anglo via contracts for difference and the bank’s secretive sale of a 10 per cent overhang to a “golden circle” of investors as he and his family finally took up a 15 per cent position on the share register, formed part of the backdrop to the destabilisation of the institution.

By extension, they also had a bearing on the destabilisation of the entire Irish banking system. That Anglo was not the architect of the woes within AIB, Bank of Ireland and the other State-guaranteed institutions must be of scant comfort to taxpayers on whose tab the entire mess must now be cleaned up.

But Quinn’s empire still prospers. Although trading levels are down overall this year, the firm “continues to enjoy superior margins” to its competitors. Although numerous businesses fight the prospect of ruin daily in an unforgiving survival struggle, Quinn feels confident enough given his company’s first-quarter performance to predict a significant increase in profits next year.

That some 80,000 jobs were eliminated in the Republic in that same three months is a grim testament to acute pressures in the wider economy.

On the strength of his own repeated public pronoucements, Quinn would appear to have the firepower to weather the storm. Whatever about his role in the Anglo affair, this is good news indeed for his staff, and for the wider economy.

Quinn likes to portray himself as a folksy businessman with little truck for public renown or public profile. But when it suited him in the past, he had no problem making public comment about the VHI’s conduct of its affairs and the lack of Government investment in Co Cavan.

Aside from an all-too-brief RTÉ interview and a couple of terse statements, he has said little about Anglo.