Cantillon: IBRC liquidators face tough questions

The special liquidators of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation came in for sustained questioning, and some gruff commentary, when they appeared before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform during the week.

Messers Kieran Wallace (above) and Eamonn Richardson, of KPMG, were questioned about the perceived conflict of interest that might exist arising from the fact they are suing the former auditors to Anglo Irish Bank – Ernst & Young – but not the former auditors of Irish Nationwide – their own KPMG.

Wallace – who took most of the questions during the long afternoon – pointed out that the decision on who to sue was taken before their appointment as liquidators, and was in the first instance taken by the board of Irish Nationwide.

However, he did say a new structure was to be put in place to manage any perceived conflict of interest arising from the litigation, and that the decision as to who to sue would be reviewed in that context.

The bulk of the questioning concerned the sale of the Nationwide mortgage book and, in particular, the fact that people who held such mortgages were not allowed bid for them while unregulated, foreign entities that would not be covered by certain Irish consumer protection measures, would.

The committee was told a high proportion (86 per cent) of the 4,175 private house mortgages that are in arrears, have concluded, or are in the process of negotiating, a restructuring deal, and that the honouring of these deals would form part of the contract for the loan book sales (should they occur).

There were 33 loans, out of the entire IBRC portfolio of loans, where the owners of the loans were allowed make bids. The bulk, if not all, of these were trading businesses, with significant numbers of employees, Wallace said, and as far as he could recall, none were property developer loans.

The sale of these 33 loans in this way had arisen following advice from consultants engaged by the liquidators, and representations from the original owners of the loans, including evidence they could execute a deal.

Some of the 33 loans had been sold and some have not yet been, and of the former category, 60 per cent were bought by their original owners and 40 per cent went to other parties because the original owners were outbid. In all instances, there were other parties bidding against the original owners, and good prices were achieved as a result, Wallace said.

Reflections on the glass ceiling
Some day, society will reach a point where glass ceilings are consigned to nightclubs and we no longer bother to work out how well (or badly, more usually) women are represented in senior positions. For now though, the research is still needed and progress on equality at work is still far from rapid.

The latest useful contribution in this regard comes from the US, where a trio of academics (two of whom work in Spain) have asked “Who’s got those top jobs?” in a piece published by the Harvard Business Review. The answer, based on a survey of the Fortune 100 companies, is men, mostly.

The good news is that the percentage of women holding the top 10 roles in the biggest companies rose quite dramatically between 2001 and 2011 – from 11 per cent to 17.7 per cent. Hurrah for that, but perhaps not for the fact that 17 of the 100 biggest US firms still have no women in their most senior positions.

Digging down a little, we find the senior women in 2011 had reached their roles about three years earlier in their careers than their male equivalents, but that still only 5 per cent had “risen to the very top”, compared to 17 per cent of the men in the survey.

Senior women were more likely to have been promoted sooner as they climbed the ladder – after an average of four years, compared to five for men. The researchers asked why this might be, concluding that women were “riding a different elevator”, in that their jobs tended to be “function-specific”. This meant that women were, for whatever reason, ascending in roles such as chief legal officer or head of human resources, rather than in the more general management roles that tend to lead on towards the chief executive’s office.

While, ultimately, more female chief executives should be the goal, perhaps a greater general emphasis on female representation in this kind of position might bear greater fruit in the near term. And once we have all got used to that, the next step will be much easier to take.

Tesla on charge to change car landscape
On Monday afternoon Tesla will find out if it has picked up yet another motoring accolade, with the winner of this year's Car of the Year for Europe being announced on the eve of the Geneva motor show. Its Model S premium coupe (pictured), an impressive all-electric car, is one of the finalists alongside more traditional motoring fare like the latest Skoda Octavia and the new Mazda3.

The Model S has already scooped several US car magazine gongs as best car in 2013 and Consumer Reports magazine called it the best car it had ever tested.

The sun is certainly shining on Tesla at present. This week, its stock rallied to a 619 per cent high in the last 12 months. It has recorded a 15-fold jump since its initial public offering in June 2010. It’s now trading at 154 times its estimated earnings.

Tesla said this week the plant – due to be operational in three years – would surpass any current lithium-ion cell factory in the world and reduce battery costs by at least 30 per cent. Such a factory would lower Tesla’s battery costs and help the company almost double its share of the global car market to about 1 per cent, analysts say.

It’s not just about electric cars, however. Over time Tesla may also emerge as an energy-storage company. By lowering the cost of energy-storage with its lithium-ion batteries, Tesla could also accelerate the disruption of the electric-utility business. Utility customers throughout the US have already begun turning to battery storage and solar panels as a way of reducing electricity bills. So not content with radically disrupting the motoring world, it has its eyes set on the old utility suppliers.

Elon Musk, a visitor to Ireland some months back for the Dublin Web Summit, seems to have the Midas touch. Certainly Tesla is charging on under Musk for now. It plans to enter the lucrative Chinese market by spring, followed by the launch of an electric SUV, the Model X, next year. Admittedly price remains a limiting factor for the Model S, coming in at close to €100,000. However, by 2016 it will have a new €45,000 model on the market. That will certainly push volumes above their current levels of under 25,000 a year.

The motor industry features production and retail traits that have changed little in the last century. There is a desire for someone – be it Musk or another newcomer – to radically alter a motoring landscape.