Ivan Yates on the Pat Kenny Show on News Talk

Steve Thatcher

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I have just listened live to a compelling interview with Ivan Yates about his bankruptcy in the UK.
He pulls no punches as he explained how hard it was, how low he flet, but ultimately how he had no choice.
He is back now debt free and re-building his life.
He offered 85c/€. It was rejected by AIB.
A brave interview and I suspect that once the dust has settled he may have further things to say about, banks, bailouts and debt solutions in Ireland.

Steve Thatcher
www.stevethatcher.ie
 
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He says he offered 85%.
He says they said to hum "Ivan it wouldn't matter of you offered 99% we wouldn't accept it"

Nice

Steve Thatcher

Just to clarify, your post said that he offered 85% to Anglo. The article I linked to refers to AIB. So who did he offer the 85% to?
 
Did he say what % he offered AIB (not Anglo)?

Here's a different perspective on how he avoided being made bankrupt in Ireland;

https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/...uide-to-avoid-being-made-bankrupt-in-ireland/

You mean he stood up to them and won? What would have been the benefit to taxpayers if he had to go via Irish bankruptcy? Or would we have been better off if AIB had accepted 85 cent in the Euro and he had paid a million more?

Plus if they'd done a deal they could have saved a lot more money on legal costs.

That article has a lot of nonsense, such as Ivan avoided service. Like Ivan wasn't in and out of Newstalk every day, at a particular time, isn't high profile and a two year old could have managed service. All it shows is the incompetence of AIB who cannot add up, they being bankers and all and not having the best accountants, adders and legal experts at their disposal. One solitary man defeated them.
 
He says he offered 85%.
He says they said to hum "Ivan it wouldn't matter of you offered 99% we wouldn't accept it"

Nice

Steve Thatcher

My OH told me it was 99.9%. Nice they ain't. But we know that. They don't like it when someone can and will stand up to them. It sounded personal. And vindictive.

I also heard that there were a lot of angry callers/texts to the show.

(It's AIB not Anglo BTW)
 
He says he offered 85%.
He says they said to hum "Ivan it wouldn't matter of you offered 99% we wouldn't accept it"

Nice

Steve Thatcher

I'm quiet sure that's Ivan's take on what they said to him!

Went on about how naive he was. Please, the man ran a string of bookmakers, was in politics for 20 years and in Govt for some of that....he's not some gob daw from the bog who'd never signed anything before in his life.

He referred to his pension on the news at 1 on rte. Part and parcel of the T&C's from him time in politics so he has no quibble in taking it.
Great T&C's though...looks like some are more equal than others in this republic

The whole episode makes a mockery of the British system. 'Centre of Interest' baloney. His wife stayed at home, he sat in an apt or in the pub all day in Swansea (working on his book during the time there also no doubt)...and bingo, 12 months later runs 'home' to Ireland and the old job is waiting for him and the debts have largely disappeared.
A joke and an affront to those of us who pay our debts and don't run to hide under the Queen of England's petticoat
 
The innocence of some posters is heartwarming.

When he says offering them 85%, what he means is some form of restructuring of debt, not a repayment of 85% which they'd have jumped at.

Ivan was owing something like 3.7m to AIB and claims he offered 3.14m and was rejected. Claims the bank said if he offered 3.6963m they'd reject that as well.

The bank vindictivly threw those millions away and instead pursued a bankruptcy.

Here's one big problem, if he had 3m the bank would have no problem and neither would have had Ivan, with those finances and maybe 300k in annual household income the bank would have no need to waste money going after his bankruptcy or even to look for immediate full repayment, he'd just need to keep the payments up to date.

In reality Ivan was several million in debt to more than one bank, and any income was spent partially servicing his debt. He clearly was not in position to be offering 3m to any bank.
 
You mean he stood up to them and won? What would have been the benefit to taxpayers if he had to go via Irish bankruptcy?
As the article points out, the taxpayer (aka AIB) would have been able to get a slice of his income over a 12 year period to repay his debts if he had gone via Irish bankruptcy.

http://examiner.ie/breakingnews/ire...ttom-of-a-glass-during-bankruptcy-605595.html

It seems strange that someone could be so lonely in their 'Centre of Main Interest'. If it was his COMI, wouldn't one reasonably expect somebody to have some roots/contacts/community in their COMI?
 
Not necessarily. You could live in the UK for 6 months and never step outside. It would still be accepted as your COMI.

I detects a lot of sour grapes from posters.
 
If half of what he complains and comments on about AIB is true , since we own AIB we still have a severe problem over their management and were we all are at.

If most of the people who have unsustainable debt could have moved to Uk 2 years ago ,we at least could see the size of the hole. As it stands AIB and the Rest of the Banks are only now getting round to looking at things !

I agree with Time , too much sourness.( Gets us nowhere.)
 
I detects a lot of sour grapes from posters.

Maybe some people just don't agree with bankruptcy tourism, which is effectively what Ivan Yates did here. He openly spoke (AFAIK) of changing his COMI to the UK for the sole purpose of bankruptcy. The whole process seems to have been neatly facilitated by Newstalk who gave him a career break of roughly 16 months to go bankrupt and then he walks back into the job after serving his notice in Wales.

I'm no apologist for the banks and have dealings with them regularly and find them clueless and unhelpful to say the least in some instances but IMO the behaviour of Yates just stinks and sickens me.

The period of 12 months to discharge is not long enough IMO and makes a mockery of people who struggle to pay their debts but continue to do so, even though deep down they know that they have no hope of any sort of decent pension pot or savings to retire on when they reach that age as all spare money is spent servicing debts.
 
This is still quite a new concept in Ireland, i.e. the ability to run off to the U.K. and avail of their jurisdictions more relaxed views on bankrupcy, simply put it is bankrupcy tourism and I for one do not agree with it as a concept.

If I lend you money and you in good faith borrow that money after making a solid proposal to me and then go on and make a fortune from that seed capital then I care not, that would be the role of a Venture Capitalist, on the other hand I do expect you to repay me with the agreed interest, I don't care how long that takes, I will restructure, I may even write off debt but I expect you to face up to the debts you signed up for, as another poster indicated Yates was no gob daw..

I think the next generation will suffer the fall out, does anybody really believe Bankers will ever loosen up when the reality of the Irish businessman seems increasingly like....ah well if it don't work out I'll shag off to the UK for a while until it all blows over...happy days, in Monopoly it was called a get out of jail card and there was me thinking that was just a board game, Bankrupcy in the UK is the Irish business mans get out of jail card.

Welcome back Mr Yates I see you have used your get out of jail card and hey I also see you've just passed GO, time to collect your €200 from Newstalk and off you go on your merry way.....so who actually paid your debt then....well it wasn't you so who cares..great little country this...I for one will not be tuning in...
 
Steve

Isn't bankruptcy in the UK a matter of public record?

Can we get a copy of his statement of assets and liabilities at the time of bankruptcy?

Can we see the Official Receiver's report to show how the "€3m" was distributed to his creditors?

Can we see how much his other creditors, such as the landlords of his bookmakers' business got from him?

Banks make stupid decisions all the time, but if he was paying them 85% of his debt they would have taken it.

Brendan
 
Steve

Isn't bankruptcy in the UK a matter of public record?

Can we get a copy of his statement of assets and liabilities at the time of bankruptcy?

Can we see the Official Receiver's report to show how the "€3m" was distributed to his creditors?

Can we see how much his other creditors, such as the landlords of his bookmakers' business got from him?

Banks make stupid decisions all the time, but if he was paying them 85% of his debt they would have taken it.

Brendan

The bankruptcy would be a matter of public record. I am not sure the report to creditors would be. You would be able to get that from a creditor perhaps.

I suspect that most of his assets would have been charged. These would have been been taken by his secured creditors. Unless you can see what it was that was taken in and then what it realised, I don't see how you know what people got back.

Did the bank get a trustee in bankruptcy appointed for instance?

Steve Thatcher
 
While I accept all the points of view above, and see the reason in all of them, I think the man has suffered enough. He wasn't underhanded, he was quite up front about what and why he was doing all the time. I wouldn't underestimate the effect it had on him his wife and his children. Go easy.
 
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