Dolmen director Jacob resigns from board

FORMER ANGLO Irish board member Michael Jacob has stood down as a director of stockbroking firm Dolmen Securities after four years on its board.

Mr Jacob said he tendered his resignation in late November and that the board of Dolmen had accepted his decision last month.

It had been signalled in early November that the Central Bank planned to question directors of Anglo and Irish Nationwide who were in place when the financial crisis struck in 2008 about being directors at other regulated firms.

The Central Bank planned to question the directors under new fitness and probity rules to assess whether a person should sit on the board of a regulated financial firm, given their involvement in Anglo and Irish Nationwide, which are costing the State €35 billion.

Mr Jacob said that he decided to stand down from Dolmen for reasons that were unconnected to the Central Bank’s tests.

“It was an independent decision,” he said. He had reached the age of 66 and decided to reduce his work commitments.

Mr Jacob joined the Dolmen board in 2007. He was the second longest-serving director of Anglo Irish Bank after chairman Seán FitzPatrick.

He joined the board of Anglo Irish as a non-executive in 1988 and resigned soon after it was nationalised in January 2009.

Dolmen chief executive Ronan Reid said Mr Jacob’s resignation had nothing to do with the Central Bank’s fitness and probity checks.

Former Irish Nationwide chairman Michael Walsh resigned as a director of IIU, the regulated investment firm of financier Dermot Desmond, in November.

He stood down the day after it emerged publicly that the Central Bank would be assessing whether former Anglo and Irish Nationwide directors were fit and proper to serve on the boards of other companies that it regulates.