Did Michael O'Leary Actually Qualify As ACA ?

T

trajan

Registered User
Messages
295
It's generally known that O'Leary did about 2 years ACA training with Stokes Kennedy Crowley between his BBS graduation in 1982 and departure to his Walkinstown newsagent in 1985.

We also know that his first meeting Tony Ryan was through advising him on personal tax matters when at SKC. I suppose we can assume that SKC wouldn't allow any staff-member (and no exception for O'Leary) to be in a client-facing role with taxation advice till they were first qualified via the Institute of Taxation exams.

The story goes that Ryan had enquired about O'Leary after his SKC departure but was told he decamped to the Walkinstown shop. Then Ryan apparently went to the shop and began the "What are you doing here, man ?" conversation that led to O'Leary selling his shops and joining Ryan's personal businesses.

But did O'Leary ever complete the ACA finals and actually qualify as chartered accountant ?

I am inclined to think that he didn't bother to ever finish his ACA training as he was making a lot more in his newsagents and stood to make yet more still with Tony Ryan. Not to mention the glitz of aviation, continental travel, hostesses, plush hotels, freedom to shout his mouth off in the office, etc, etc.
 
@odyssey06

Biographical completeness, of course.

Incidentally, the release of such information would also:

(a) boost entry numbers to the ACA programme from candidates wanting it only as a business/management qualification rather than the traditional consulting career undertaken by most chartered accountants; and

(b) give the lie to any suggestion that the CTA qualification only led to a career in tax consultancy and the limited - though comfortable and secure - lifestyle obtainable from that.
 
Looked through Matt Cooper's bio (we'll call it that anyway) of Mickser.

No detail on whether he got the ACA designation or not.

Mickser is not giving away anything that can be profitably sold
 
It’s none of our business whether Michael O’Leary qualified in anything or not anywhere.
 
Actually, an interesting part of Matt Cooper's bio of Michael O'Leary was that no one in his class at Clongowes ever saw any sign of his future career in him then; still less all the profanity and publicity-seeking. He was a diligent student, got up earlier than others to help the priest prepare mass (I'll bet he got a few bob for that, off the books :D), played sport enthusiastically and didn't mouth off too much. It was much the same in TCD - where he basically got his head down at study, made a few pounds tending bar in a not too busy hotel and lived in an apartment shared by two sisters and owned by his father. He must have hit the top 10% of his class as Stokes Kennedy Crowley had the pick of graduates in mean 1982 and apparently he had no family influence to get 'pulled' in there unmeritoriously either.

I wouldn't doubt for a second that guys like O'Leary (then) would get through their ACA finals at the first jump. That he may have not bothered reflects the limited usefulness of the post-finals professional practice stint and the ACA shingle to someone just wanting to make money. He saw from his auditing of businesses that the money back then was in newsagents, bars and restaurants. When a suitable newsagent came on sale at the Walkinstown roundabout he got a loan, bought the business plus its associated premises lease and said goodbye to auditing and tax.

Poor old Bertie wouldn't be able to grind anyone of O'Leary's class - not in accounting, tax law, economics, econometrics, marketing, business psychology or entrepreneurship anyhow. Maybe in gombeenery, schnozzling, jiggery-pokery and waffling. I better say no more or Brendan will start worrying about losing his beloved house :eek:
 
Last edited:
trajan said:
Actually, an interesting part of Matt Cooper's bio of Michael O'Leary was that no one in his class at Clongowes ever saw any sign of his future career in him then; still less all the profanity and publicity-seeking. He was a diligent student, got up earlier than others to help the priest prepare mass (I'll bet he got a few bob for that, off the books :D), played sport enthusiastically and didn't mouth off too much. It was much the same in TCD - where he basically got his head down at study, made a few pounds tending bar in a not too busy hotel and lived in an apartment shared by two sisters and owned by his father. He must have hit the top 10% of his class as Stokes Kennedy Crowley had the pick of graduates in mean 1982 and apparently he had no family influence to get 'pulled' in there unmeritoriously either.

I wouldn't doubt for a second that guys like O'Leary (then) would get through their ACA finals at the first jump. That he may have not bothered reflects the limited usefulness of the post-finals professional practice stint and the ACA shingle to someone just wanting to make money. He saw from his auditing of businesses that the money back then was in newsagents, bars and restaurants. When a suitable newsagent came on sale at the Walkinstown roundabout he got a loan, bought the business plus its associated premises lease and said goodbye to auditing and tax.

Poor old Bertie wouldn't be able to grind anyone of O'Leary's class - not in accounting, tax law, economics, econometrics, marketing, business psychology or entrepreneurship anyhow. Maybe in gombeenery, schnozzling, jiggery-pokery and waffling. I better say no more or Brendan will start worrying about losing his beloved house :eek:
Click to expand...
How long did he have the news agents for? Berties main attributes were self preservation and negotiation.
 
Harvard said:
How long did he have the news agents for? Berties main attributes were self preservation and negotiation.
Click to expand...

About 3 years, 1985 - 1988.
After putting the profits of Walkinstown into buying 2 more newsagents, he got visited by Tony Ryan.
A profit-share agreement rather than salary was made on O'Leary managing some of Ryan's privately owned businesses . The 3 newsagents were sold. Cooper provides no sale figures.
 
trajan said:
About 3 years, 1985 - 1988.
After putting the profits of Walkinstown into buying 2 more newsagents, he got visited by Tony Ryan.
A profit-share agreement rather than salary was made on O'Leary managing some of Ryan's privately owned businesses . The 3 newsagents were sold. Cooper provides no sale figures.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good enough read as biographies go.
 
Harvard said:
Sounds like a good enough read as biographies go.
Click to expand...

It's really more a biography of RyanAir and its travails.

It's pretty sad to read a biography where none of the subject's childhood friends, schoolmates, college contemporaries and early business associates do not give any help in filling the picture. There isn't much on girlfriends during his youth or early business career.

Clearly the subject did not cooperate on personal or family detail nor encourage others to do so. All we know of O'Leary's father comes from scant business folklore and 3 points about his business sharpness made by Philip Reynolds of C & D Foods (one of the few named sources) to whom O'Leary Sr was a supplier. His mother clearly is a more influential person in his life - she's cast as a spiritually strong person and someone Mick deeply respected, though without much supporting detail. There's nothing about the siblings bar their number and gender.

From experience of reading shoals of bios, you won't get a good one till maybe the third bio after the person dies. The first after death is rushed out to put on record stuff likely to be controversial in the subject's lifetime and is usually done by a journalist aiming to pull in money. The second is usually a bit more considered. And the third done by a professional historian over a period of years will have to be a major serious critical work - otherwise it won't be bought by readers of previous ones.

In fairness, O'Leary has as much a right to a quiet life away from business as everyone else. He's got a growing brood to consider and by and large he seems to want to be fair to them publicity-wise while they are young. He does his bit in the community around Co Meath and doesn't make a show of himself in that milieu.

So don't invest in Cooper's book. Wait for the full tome in your retirement.
 
trajan said:
It's pretty sad to read a biography where none of the subject's childhood friends, schoolmates, college contemporaries and early business associates do not give any help in filling the picture.
Click to expand...
I'd say the opposite! It's refreshing to see people show loyalty to a friend or colleague (former or current) and keep their mouths shut!!
 
trajan said:
It's pretty sad to read a biography where none of the subject's childhood friends, schoolmates, college contemporaries and early business associates do not give any help in filling the picture.
Click to expand...
I think it might say more about Matt Cooper than Michael O'Leary.
Maybe Matt concentrated on the business side of things.
Maybe O'Leary's friends and colleagues think highly of him and didn't want to talk to Cooper.
Maybe O'Leary's friends and colleagues don't think highly of Cooper and didn't want to talk to him.
 
Siobhan Creaton had a book on Ryanair in 2004 which heavily featured O’Leary.

I dimly remember it said that he got an accountancy qualification before doing the newsagents thing in west Dublin.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
I dimly remember it said that he got an accountancy qualification before doing the newsagents thing in west Dublin.
Click to expand...

As novelistically vague as you can get - a bit like Bertie's claim to have worked in the accounts department of the old Mater Hospital . . .

It might be technically true for Creaton to say that if passing Part I of the ACA (or being given credit for it as he already had completed the requirements within his BBS course) was the case.

But Creaton's statement doesn't answer the precise question here, which is whether MOL passed the final CA exams and completed his professional practice period. To my mind, the known timeline doesn't allow for this to have been done before his newsagents' enterprise. And given his seeing accounting training as merely a stepping-stone to wealth for himself, it is unlikely that he completed the ACA requirements after making his pile and selling the newsagents to take up Tony Ryan's job offer.

The true answer to the question however remains unknown till hard sources emerge to us.
 
My take away from this thread is that one doesn't need qualification to be educated in a particular field.
I'd guess that O'Leary is better at running the financial side of a business than most qualified accountants.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top