Cornucopia

by John Kinsella

“No, you know like in Wagner.”

  “What?”

  “Götterdämmerung.”

  “Forget it Pat, continue.”

  “It just came through, a stock exchange newsflash.”

  “A reprieve, for how long?”

  “You think it’s that bad Fitz.”

  “You’d better believe its bad Pat!”

  It seemed like the judges did not want to have the collapse of the eurozone on their conscience. Whatever their reasons the markets bounced back and banking shares perked up in spite of the fact the rescue programme for Greece was heading for the rocks.

  WEE FEEKERS!

  “Will you look at these silly wee feekers!”

  “What have you got now?” asked Fitzwilliams.

  “The Irish Independent’s published recordings of Drumm’s telephone conversations at the Anglo-Irish.”

  “What!”

  “That silly feeker Drumm was taped on a phone call with Bowe laughing about the UK and Germany.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Yes, he said ‘get the feekin money in’. Then they both started singing Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles down the phone.”

  “Idiots.”

  “Listen to this, with the bank on the verge of collapse he said: ‘Another day, another billion’.”

  In October 2008, the bank guarantee scheme was rushed through the Dáil to avoid the collapse of the country’s banking system. Deposits and borrowings were guaranteed for leading Irish-owned banks for two years to prevent a disastrous flight of depositors. Amongst these was the Anglo-Irish Bank, which was nationalised after huge losses, and evidence its directors had engaged in illegal business practices, including the attribution of loans to themselves and their friends.

  “Drumm said: ‘Ah, you’re abusing that guarantee. Paying too much in Germany I heard now as well. Feekin ridiculous, John’.”

  A regulator had called Bowe to tell him to be careful how it used the guarantee. Mimicking the regulator, Drumm said: ‘It’s feekin awful what’s going out there. I mean the feekin Germans are on to us now, David, you know.’

  The Irish bank guarantee scheme caused a storm with Britain’s Chancellor phoning Ireland’s finance minister to tell him the scheme put UK banks in an impossible position, while Angela Merkel said it was unacceptable.

  Drumm said: ‘We need the moolah, you have it, so you’re going to give it to us and when would that be? We’ll start there’ and if they didn’t get it he’d ‘hand the keys’ to the state, ‘because if they don’t give it to us on Monday they have a bank collapse. If the feekin money keeps running out the door, the way it has been running out the door.’

  ‘Stick fingers up,’ retorted Drumm, then adding he ‘had a pop’ at the Irish regulator ‘about Northern Rock. I said look they went around with the Union Jack wrapped tightly around them like a jumpsuit and grabbed all the deposits and where was our feekin minister for finance then?’

  He continued: ‘So I’m playing a little bit of a game of “Oh Jesus, look we don’t want you to be under pressure, we’re going to do the best we can. We won’t do anything blatant but - we have to get the money in. We’ll have to feekin tiddly-winkle for it.”’

  ‘So I’m just saying to the guys, look, just be smart... don’t be stupid, get it in, don’t be overtly pumping it..., but we want to get the liquidity ratios up,’ Bowie replied.

  ‘Correct and right,’ Drumm said. ‘So OK just keep nursing along..., Jack the rates up. That’s what I really meant, get the feekin money in, get it in.’

  Earlier Bowe had joked he had picked a seven billion figure ‘out my arse’ when Anglo-Irish tried to lure the Irish government into a huge bailout.

  He was also heard telling Fitzgerald, ‘it would be “fantastic” if Anglo was nationalised because “we’d keep our jobs”’.

  “The silly bastards can’t even speak English,” groaned Michael Fitzwilliams. “It’s about time the government set up a public inquiry into the business.”

  Silently he was thinking, there but for the grace of God....

  “The feekers will end up in prison,” said Pat with a frisson remembering his own brief sojourn at Mountjoy, Dublin’s grim prison.

  The two men had a lot to be thankful for and they knew it.

  “Drumm is living in Boston now,” said Pat more cheerfully.

  “Don’t worry they’ll extradite him.”

  “Unless he scoots to Panama,” added Pat with a laugh.

  “There’s a lesson there Pat.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yes. Be very careful what you say over the phone … and by the way, check to see if all our phones are encrypted.”

  A BONANZA

  Pat Kennedy waltzed in with a broad smile on his face, for once there was good news from Ireland. The confirmation of oil and gas reserves under the sea bed surrounding the Emerald Isles seemed to confirm the proverbial luck of the Irish.

  “Would you look at this Fitz,” he said waving a copy of The Times at Fitzwilliams. An Irish oil bonanza.

  “I’ve read it,” said the banker, “Don’t hold your breath Pat.”

  “Well it’s official from Providence Resources survey,” replied Pat deflated by Fitzwilliams’ lack of enthusiasm.

  “Let’s hope it’s true because we’ve got a bet running on his company.”

  “Bet?”

  “Yes Pat, I don’t have to remind you it was on your recommendation we loaned them money for the drilling rigs they bought from Sergei Tarasov’s friends in Russia.”

  “Gazprom. They’re part of the farm-out process.”

  “What?”

  “Farm-out. That means bringing in qualified partners for production purposes, like Gazprom.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Michael, don’t forget we have shares in Reilly’s company.”

  “We?”

  “You and I.”

  “How come.”

  “That’s the way I set up the deal.”

  “Well let’s hope he has more success than his old man.”

  “It’s not the same thing Fitz.”

  “What’s it worth then?” said Fitzwilliams in a more accommodating tone.

  “Quite a bit Michael. The shares have shot up three hundred percent this morning on the stock exchange.”

  “Dublin?”

  “London.”

  Tony Reilly, son of the ill fated Anthony Reilly - Ireland’s long time golden boy, held the rights to several blocks in the Celtic Sea, off the coast of Cork, where the discovery had been made. His company, aptly named Providence Resources, was soon scheduled to start production from the Barryroe Field.

  Oil, so he believed, was about to transform Ireland’s fortunes after the crisis years, and his battle against hard-core eco-warriors who had persistently blocked production, preventing the company’s take off and the flow of new much needed revenues to the state’s coffers.

  NICARAGUA

  Wang’s involvement in the canal was the fruit of a meeting in 2012 with the son of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega. It came as Wang sought to expand his telecom business into the country, the poorest in the Western hemisphere after Haiti.

  Wang imagined the potential Nicaragua offered: it was virgin territory, abandoned by its neighbours and above all left to its sad fate by the US. There were sea and air ports to build, the development of tourism as in nearby Costa Rica and Panama, and the creation of free trade zones. Nicaragua’s geostrategical location would open a new gateway to lucrative North and South American markets, an attractive new manufacturing and distribution hub with its population of eight million, a willing labour force that could be put to work for the production of consumer goods with costs even lower than those of China.

  China was cautious, and for complex diplomatic reasons did not want Beijing to be seen as being directly involved. If fact China did not even enjoy diplomatic relations with Nicaragua and the risk of being thought to mess with the US in its own backyard was too great
.

  P

  anama and Nicaragua

  Moreover, Nicaragua was one of the few remaining countries to still recognise Taiwan, a fact that went a long way to explaining Beijing’s reluctance to be seen as being directly involved in the project, leaving that role to HKND, a private company based in Hong Kong.

  Rumour had it Wang was the son of a high-ranking military official and a grandson of Wang Zhen, one of the Eight Elders of the Chinese Communist Party, a die-hard conservative, notorious for his hard-line stance on the Tiananmen demonstrations, all of which would make the entrepreneur a princeling in the ranks of China’s so called Red Royalty.

  His connections went a long way to explaining why his company, the Xinwei Group, was one of the first private firms to be able to invest in China’s space industry; normally an exclusively military industrial establishment affair. Xinwei, a certified vendor to the People’s Liberation Army, planned to put thirty two telecommunication satellites into orbit, something that was inconceivable in China without state approval and the evident backing of the military.

  *

  On the twenty eighth floor of the Jardine owned Mandarin Oriental Hotel, in Central, the heart of Hong Kong, a Chinese investor and his wife listened attentively as Sarah Kavanagh of Gutherie Plimpton’s took them on a virtual tour of an upmarket property development for sale in London.

  The investor was one of the many cash-rich mainland Chinese who was taking the precaution of spreading his bets. Many feared the Chinese property market had started to resemble that of the US in the period leading up to the sub-prime crash. It was why the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the People’s Bank of China had taken steps to cool the market, triggering a rush for alternative assets overseas to protect newly found wealth.

  The event was part of a campaign launched by Guthrie Plimpton to promote prime London property in China. Sarah Kavanagh was hosting the weekend venue designed to provide prospective buyers with an introduction to homes abroad, notably in London, Marbella, Cannes and Dominica, with INI Hong Kong offering buyers its services for setting up accounts, financing, transfers and legal assistance.

  The properties proposed included Gould’s Cheyne Walk development, for which Sarah proposed a visit to London, offering serious buyers from Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chongqing accommodation in a first class hotels accompanied by a Chinese speaking guide to visit its properties.

  Purchases by Mainland Chinese had accounted for over forty percent of new luxury home sales in Hong Kong. That is until the Special Administrative Region imposed a fifteen percent tax on foreigners, meaning Mainland buyers, which had the effect of pushing investors into the arms of real estate firms like Gutherie Plimpton that offered buyers overseas alternatives, notably London.

  *

  The über rich’s appetite for London property was growing fast, forcing prices higher and higher as they snapped up super-prime properties, proof that globalisation knew no limits. At Guthrie Plimpton's, Sarah Kavanagh knew it, she was in a position to, she was at the very heart that encouraged the scramble. Sarah had moved up the ladder, in three or four years she had become one of the real estate agent’s leading consultants, her domain prime property, just a notch away from super-prime; that is properties from ten million pounds upwards. She had been promoted following her success in Dominica, where she was accredited with the successful introduction of the Emerald Pool II development to Chinese investors. She had hit the headlines after being photographed shaking the hand of the new Chinese Premier on his first visit overseas … surprisingly to the Caribbean.

  London had a lot going for it, there was political stability, the City, the English language, a multi-ethnic society, a fair degree of religious tolerance and of course outstanding fine property like for example Brompton Square, where a six-bedroom house could sell for twenty five million pounds up.

  As London’s poor looked on, as paradoxically most such homes were occupied a mere four to six weeks a year by their owners, who not satisfied with their magnificent properties, invested in expanding them downwards: iceberg homes, and not only beneath the house itself, but also under the garden and outbuildings, with the addition of ultramodern kitchens, garages, gymnasiums, cinemas and even swimming pools.

  The über rich could spend anything between ten and one hundred million pounds for a London home with the record reaching over two hundred million. They came from Russia, the Middle East, and from France, Spain and astonishingly crisis stricken Greece, with a quarter of them part of the British plutocracy.

  London was also a top destination for investment in commercial property. Six years after the crash, sales had returned to pre-crisis levels. It was a good time for INI’s property fund. London was a safe haven and compared to continental Europe the attraction of phenomenal gains drew investors from all over the world.

  The slowing down of the Chinese economy had become a reality confirmed by the China Securities Journal in a front page editorial. The journal announced capital inflows had slowed with investors turning away from emerging markets as the US the dollar strengthened with the Fed speaking of an end to its policy of quantitative easing.

  China was threatened not only by significant capital outflows, but also its growing debt burden, which had passed the two hundred and twenty percent GDP mark. Any deleveraging by Chinese banks would have a serious impact on the country’s economy, transforming the hoped for soft landing into something much harder than planned.

  *

  Lili’s grandfather had know bad times. As a leader in the People’s Liberation Army he had escaped the madness of the Cultural Revolution. In the madness that Mao had unleashed, Wu Yeye had smuggled his family out of Canton in the dead of night, down the Pearl River by boat to the safety of Hong Kong and Macao. As the frenzy reached its peak Red Guards ran wild, rampaging through the streets, destroying the symbols of the old bourgeois world. The chaos and violence increased when schools and universities closed, freeing students to pursue the destruction of the Four Olds: old customs, old habits, old culture, and old thinking. They physically and verbally attacked their teachers, school administrators, Communist Party members, neighbours, friends, relatives and even their parents.

  Once normality returned, Wu’s son, Lili’s father, turned his attention to the textile factories the family, in an opaque arrangement with other Communist leaders, still controlled. Following the death of Mao and the arrival of Deng Xiaoping, he invested all his efforts in expanding production to meet the growing demand as China reformed.

  As Wu liked to explain, Southern Chinese always followed a different path. They were historically more open to the outside world. Thanks to the proximity of Hong Kong; his links with the People’s Liberation Army; and his position in the Guangdong government, he was encouraged to develop his multiple and diverse businesses.

  During that propitious period Wu’s brother remained in Hong Kong, where with his cousins he built up the family business, becoming one of the colony’s richest man thanks to Deng’s creation of a Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen, created to take advantage of the British Colony’s financial strength and its links with the world outside.

  HOUGHTON HALL

  As Sergei Tarasov disembarked from his helicopter with his two English friends, he paused to admire the magnificent Palladian mansion the stood before him with its one thousand acre setting of rolling Norfolk parkland. Steve Howard reminded the Russian, Houghton Hall had been built as the home of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime minister. Walpole had led the governments of George I and George II over a period of twenty years, from 1721 to 1742, before resigning following a motion of no confidence.

  Walpole’s political career came to an end with the defeat of the British navy at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741. It was one of the greatest debacles in British military history, resulting in the loss of ten thousand men, a third of the British force, compared to a mere eight hundred on the Spanish side. Little mentioned in British history books,
it marked an important point in colonial history, since it allowed Spain to maintain its Empire and military supremacy in South America for another one and a half centuries. Three years later Walpole died in debt.

  Houghton Hall was now the home of the seventh Marquess of Cholmondeley, David Cholmondeley, the Lord Great Chamberlain of the United Kingdom, a hereditary role in the British monarchist system.

  The occasion for Tarasov’s presence was the opening of an exhibition of seventy masterpieces from Sir Robert Walpole’s art collection on loan from the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, in the presence of Prince Charles, future King of England.

  Tarasov, like another Russian media magnate, Alexander Lebedev, was a patron of Houghton Revisited. The magnificent art collection of two hundred paintings, including works by Murillo, Poussin, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck and Velázquez, was owned by the Hermitage. In 1778, Walpole’s heavily indebted grandson, a philandering gambler, had sold more than two hundred of the paintings for forty thousand gold guineas to Catherine the Great to adorn her palace in St. Petersburg.

  The elite gathering, in the splendid Palladian mansion built of York stone, was an important occasion for the Russians, time to repair, or at least try to plaster over the cracks that had opened in relations between London and Moscow. For the first time in more than two hundred years the paintings were presented in their original settings.

  Howard spotted Tony Blair’s strange spin doctor amongst the guests. Howard remembered him from Santorino a few years earlier when he been an ardent friend of Saïf Gaddafi. In contrast to Walpoles outward going ideas, he had been one of the architects of New Labour’s immigration policy, responsible for burdening the UK with a massive influx of immigrants who brought nothing but their hands with them as the world marched towards the era of robotics.