Byrne reveals his pension is gone
'Everyone is worried and going through tough times,' says former host of Late Late Show
Sunday July 12 2009
VETERAN broadcaster Gay Byrne has revealed that his pension fund has been wiped out by the recession.
The former Late Late Show host described how he believed the money for his retirement was in a "lovely safe investment" before it was destroyed by the fallout from plummeting bank shares.
Speaking about his current financial situation, Mr Byrne said: "Everyone is going through a tough time, everyone is talking to banks, and everyone is looking at where they are.
"I'm as reassured as anybody can be at this time. Everybody is worried."
He continued: "Like all those people at the Anglo Irish Bank EGM, that I happened to go into by chance and then ended up on the front page of every newspaper in the country, all of those people are just like me.
"They all had lovely safe investments in their pension funds, in AIB, Bank Of Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank, and [now] they're all worth nothing." Asked if he was in the same situation, he replied: "In the pension fund regard ... yes." Commenting on his financial investment with Quinlan Private, the investment advisory group which was thrown into the spotlight last week after its chairman Derek Quinlan stepped down, Mr Byrne said he was as "happy as could be" with his investment in the "current terrible climate".
"I'm perfectly happy where I stand at the moment. So is Derek [Quinlan].
"Happy as can be in the present terrible climate. So is Quinlan Private. Happy as they can be in the present climate. There isn't an accountant's office anywhere in Dublin which is not engaged in negotiations with banks." Asked whether or not he has been approached by Quinlan Private to put up extra cash because of the falls in the value of property in which he had invested, Mr Byrne said: "They haven't been asking me. I know that there are partnerships within the Quinlan Private office who have been asked to stump up more money."
And when asked about the retirement of Mr Quinlan, a long-time friend whom the broadcaster has known for 30 years, Mr Byrne said he was doing "terrific".
"He is very well. He is terrific. I don't know anything more than he's been intending to retire for quite some time and the time has come.
"He has been doing more stuff on his own, separate from Quinlan Private, and he has four good guys in there who are partners.
"He recruited them all and they're very good and they're carrying on the business."
Mr Byrne added that the multi-millionaire financier had been initially planning to step down over a decade ago.
"When I first met him 30 years ago he was talking about retiring when he was 50 and he always had his mind set on that. [Then] he was talking about retiring when he was 60, so he's 61 now and they've been building up to this for quite a period so he's retired and that's it."
He added: "I know he's been playing less and less of a part in Quinlan Private over the past few years anyways because he has so much going on, on his own personally, and allied to that they've been preparing for his retirement for at least six months and now the time has come."
Mr Quinlan's retirement comes at a time of crisis in Irish and international property markets.
Mr Quinlan and his firm Quinlan Private were the undisputed kings of property investments during the boom-time years, beginning with small Irish transactions before moving on to secure prestigious deals in London, New York and eastern Europe.
Mr Quinlan's unrivalled access to wealthy clients in the legal, medical and business world meant the firm and its clients built up enough of a fund to create an €11bn international portfolio.
- Niamh Horan
