Fortunes lost on road to ruin
Directors helpless as wealth was wiped out
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ANGLO's shares were suspended on Friday January 16 having closed at 20 cent the previous day.
It marked an ignominious fall from grace for the banker and saw a huge amount of wealth wiped out, with no prospect of a comeback.
The share price had peaked almost two years earlier when it traded as high as €17 in May 2007, a level which valued the bank at almost €13bn.
By the time the shares were suspended on January 16, 2009, the day following the Government decision to nationalise the bank, this value had plummeted to a paltry €152m -- just a fraction of the €784m profit the bank had recorded in the year to September 2008.
Disaster
For the investing public the fall in value was a disaster, but at least they always had the option of reducing their holding.
For the senior executive directors of the bank it was a different matter, with their hands effectively tied and prevented from making large share disposals, they simply had to stand and watch as their wealth evaporated before their eyes.
Top of the pile in terms of shareholding was former chief executive and chairman Sean FitzPatrick, who as a founding director of the bank had a pretty unrivalled position in the table detailing directors ownership of shares in the company.
His holding amounted to 4.9 million shares at the end of September 2008 -- he had added 400,000 shares to his holding in the bank over the course of the year. At their peak Mr FitzPatrick's holding would have been worth almost €83m, but by the time the Government pulled the plug their worth had fallen to just €980,000.
The only director who got close to rivalling Mr FitzPatrick in terms of his holding was finance chief Wille McAteer.
His shareholding would have been worth around €57m at its peak in May of 2007, but had fallen to a value of just €680,000 by the time the bank was nationalised a month ago.
The others still suffered from the effect of the wipe-out, with David Drum hurtling from a worth of almost €17m at the peak to just €200,000.
Among the other big losers are non-executive directors like Ned Sullivan who had built-up a portfolio of some 440,084 shares by the time the plug was pulled.
- pat boyle
