Anglo asks Fingleton to give up €11,500 retirement watch

ANGLO IRISH Bank has, as the new owner of Irish Nationwide, asked the building society’s former chief executive Michael Fingleton to return an €11,500 watch he received from the State-guaranteed institution on his retirement in April 2009.

Mike Aynsley, chief executive of the State-owned bank, said that Anglo hand-delivered a letter to Mr Fingleton’s home in south Co Dublin yesterday evening seeking the return of the watch with a view to selling it to recover some value for the State.

He also made a fresh appeal to Mr Fingleton to repay the controversial bonus he received in the weeks after the introduction of the government bank guarantee in 2008.

Mr Aynsley said that the cost of the watch to the building society was €21,150 as Irish Nationwide paid tax of €9,650 that would otherwise have fallen due to Mr Fingleton on his receipt of the gift.

Irish Nationwide was taken into public ownership last year and has received €5.4 billion from the State to cover losses on property loans.

“It’s disgraceful that he would accept a retirement gift at a time when the bank was guaranteed by the State and it was clear that it, along with all other institutions, was financially distressed,” Mr Aynsley said. The watch was purchased in Paul Sheeran Jewellers in Dublin.

Anglo, which took over Irish Nationwide at the start of last month, has taken charge of “legacy issues” at the institution. “There are external investigations going on,” Mr Aynsley confirmed, but he declined to comment on the nature of the inquiries.

He said the building society had withheld €400,000 of Mr Fingleton’s €1 million bonus for tax at the time it was paid in November 2008 but Anglo was seeking repayment of the remaining €600,000.

Mr Aynsley said it was “disgraceful” that Mr Fingleton had not repaid the bonus when he had publicly committed to do so in 2009.

Irish Nationwide wrote to Mr Fingleton six times, most recently in December 2010, seeking its repayment. He responded four times but never repaid the money. “The INBS board felt that they went as far as they could,” said Mr Aynsley.

A call seeking comment from Mr Fingleton was not returned.

He has claimed he would repay the money on agreement that there would be no further interest in it or his €27 million pension, but that former minister for finance Brian Lenihan launched an inquiry into both matters. He said this released him from his promise to repay.

Mr Aynsley said Mr Lenihan had told Irish Nationwide chairman Danny Kitchen in a letter in December 2009 that no such agreement existed. While accepting that Mr Fingleton was legally entitled to the bonus, Mr Aynsley called on him to “do the right thing at a difficult time for the country”.