Fanning questions why Anglo pursued €8.6m loan

Former Smart Telecom CEO Oisin Fanning has questioned why Anglo Irish Bank pursued him for €8.6 million in interest and loans when others owed the bank “hundreds of millions”.

Speaking after the High Court granted a repossession order on Mr Fanning’s Co Kildare home, he said it was “remarkable” that Anglo had taken the action.

Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne ruled today the bank was entitled to an order for possession of Forenaghts House, Forenaghts, near Naas where Mr Fanning, his partner, Pearl Roche, and her four grown up children live. The judge put a three month stay on execution of the order on condition Mr Fanning make a €400,000 interest repayment by April.

The loan taken out in 2006 was used to enable Mr Fanning buy €5 million of shares in Smart and to refinance an existing €2.9 million mortgage. Mr Fanning claims he was pressurised into taking out the loan by businessman Brendan Murtagh and Anglo gave him the loan only on the urging of Mr Murtagh, a long-standing business customer of the bank.

Just two years earlier, Anglo told him it was not interested in funding either him or his company, he claims. Smart was sold to Mr Murtagh for €1 in 2007 after its shares fell 99 per cent. Mr Fanning left the company in 2006 on health grounds.

Speaking to reporters after today’s court ruling Mr Fanning said the decision was very upsetting for his family but it was “not the end of the story”.

“You have to ask yourself why a bank would give you a one-year loan when my own salary couldn’t possibly meet the interest repayments, so we are disappointed but it’s not the end of the story,” he said.

“I think it’s remarkable that Anglo Irish take the view that I’m worth pursuing, and it is a substantial sum of money I’m not disputing that, but that I’m worth pursuing when there are people clearly not servicing maybe hundreds of millions in terms of loans.”

He said the ruling would have a huge effect on his family. “We’re a very close-knit family I have a son that I get full custody of… Pearl has four children we all live together, it’s very upsetting.

“What’s particularly upsetting is if this was a loan taken out, a straightforward loan, I’d stand up take my responsibilities, sell what I have to sell, do what I have to do. This is not the case."