Post by earl on Feb 7, 2008 14:14:27 GMT
This'll make you sick Setanta!
Ireland’s helicopter boom highlights the confidence of the country’s rich
When the crowds gathered at the Galway Races last July, race-goers could barely hear themselves speak for the noise of helicopters overhead. This year, there will be more, as a leather-seated twin-engine Agusta 109 becomes the must-have among Ireland''s oligarchs.
Such is the buoyant mood among the country's moneyed elite that three out of every five helicopters sold by Sloane Helicopters are bought by rich Irish entrepreneurs, making it the top market in Europe, according to Sloane's Stephen Mitchell. While Gerard Creedon of Gaelic Helicopters says: "Everyone is aware of them at the races now."
Oligarchs tend to stay close to powerful politicians. Thus it was at the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway Races that multi-millionaire developer Sean Dunne, a close friend of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, met his wife, the newspaper gossip columnist Gayle Killilea. Their wedding party was a four-day cruise on board Aristotle Onassis' yacht, the Cristina.
Ireland has the world's third highest count per capita of billionaires, behind only Kuwait and Switzerland, and in 2007 Ireland's richest 250 boosted their collective wealth up to £44.24bn.
Like the Russian oligarchs, many Irish tycoons made their money on home ground - in this case in Irish property - and then acquired a portfolio of investments abroad. Ireland was once dependent on overseas funding, but today the amount Ireland invests abroad equals its level of inward investment.
By spreading their investments abroad, the Irish billionaires are expected to avoid the fate of some London-based property tycoons like Robert Tchenquiz, recently in the headlines when he reportedly lost £560m on the value of his investments in 12 weeks.
Hilary Weston (pictured on previous page), Ireland's richest woman, worth £4bn, has retail assets in North America from her marriage to a Canadian retailer. County Fermanagh insurance tycoon Sean Quinn, Ireland's second richest individual with a fortune of £3bn, hunts for businesses that grow 30 per cent and has taken control of five-star Hilton hotels in Prague and Sofia, Bulgaria.
Sean Mulryan - who has two helicopters - owns most of London's Canary Wharf. Johnny 'The Buccaneer' Ronan, the pony-tailed son of a pig farmer, who has a chauffeur-driven metallic blue Hummer, is behind the Battersea power station development in London and is involved in a €1.2bn property development in Shanghai.
All of which can make a pop star feel pretty small. U2, Ireland's leading pop export, are worth a mere £487m, putting them at a lowly 20th on the country's rich list. As a result they have been emulating the oligarchs' tactics to try to catch up, recently moving their publishing business out of Ireland to the Netherlands for tax reasons.
Frontman Bono now sits on the board of a private equity company, Elevation, with a previous senior MD of Blackstone, the world's largest private equity group. Elevation has raised €1.3bn in capital to invest in media and music industry businesses. In an interview in Portfolio magazine Bono (left) said he now spent 15 per cent of his time on Elevation where he is both a door-opener and a deal closer.
Ireland’s helicopter boom highlights the confidence of the country’s rich
When the crowds gathered at the Galway Races last July, race-goers could barely hear themselves speak for the noise of helicopters overhead. This year, there will be more, as a leather-seated twin-engine Agusta 109 becomes the must-have among Ireland''s oligarchs.
Such is the buoyant mood among the country's moneyed elite that three out of every five helicopters sold by Sloane Helicopters are bought by rich Irish entrepreneurs, making it the top market in Europe, according to Sloane's Stephen Mitchell. While Gerard Creedon of Gaelic Helicopters says: "Everyone is aware of them at the races now."
Oligarchs tend to stay close to powerful politicians. Thus it was at the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway Races that multi-millionaire developer Sean Dunne, a close friend of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, met his wife, the newspaper gossip columnist Gayle Killilea. Their wedding party was a four-day cruise on board Aristotle Onassis' yacht, the Cristina.
Ireland has the world's third highest count per capita of billionaires, behind only Kuwait and Switzerland, and in 2007 Ireland's richest 250 boosted their collective wealth up to £44.24bn.
Like the Russian oligarchs, many Irish tycoons made their money on home ground - in this case in Irish property - and then acquired a portfolio of investments abroad. Ireland was once dependent on overseas funding, but today the amount Ireland invests abroad equals its level of inward investment.
By spreading their investments abroad, the Irish billionaires are expected to avoid the fate of some London-based property tycoons like Robert Tchenquiz, recently in the headlines when he reportedly lost £560m on the value of his investments in 12 weeks.
Hilary Weston (pictured on previous page), Ireland's richest woman, worth £4bn, has retail assets in North America from her marriage to a Canadian retailer. County Fermanagh insurance tycoon Sean Quinn, Ireland's second richest individual with a fortune of £3bn, hunts for businesses that grow 30 per cent and has taken control of five-star Hilton hotels in Prague and Sofia, Bulgaria.
Sean Mulryan - who has two helicopters - owns most of London's Canary Wharf. Johnny 'The Buccaneer' Ronan, the pony-tailed son of a pig farmer, who has a chauffeur-driven metallic blue Hummer, is behind the Battersea power station development in London and is involved in a €1.2bn property development in Shanghai.
All of which can make a pop star feel pretty small. U2, Ireland's leading pop export, are worth a mere £487m, putting them at a lowly 20th on the country's rich list. As a result they have been emulating the oligarchs' tactics to try to catch up, recently moving their publishing business out of Ireland to the Netherlands for tax reasons.
Frontman Bono now sits on the board of a private equity company, Elevation, with a previous senior MD of Blackstone, the world's largest private equity group. Elevation has raised €1.3bn in capital to invest in media and music industry businesses. In an interview in Portfolio magazine Bono (left) said he now spent 15 per cent of his time on Elevation where he is both a door-opener and a deal closer.
