Quinn: Stayed tuned, there’s more to come

Shhh….listen hard, there are no messages, no announcements and no aggressive statements outlining the future from Quinn Insurance this week. The group has had its head down. It has been busy preparing its case for the high court battle of its life on Monday. There is still no word from chief executive Colin Morgan. And founder Sean Quinn has spoken only to a regional newspaper to express his regret concerning any potential job cuts, which he hopes will be avoidable. And the only limited response from the regulator to the pages of documents Quinn submitted to court at the twelfth hour, and before the hearing was postponed by a week on Monday, was that it did not address the many ‘serious concerns’ that have been outlined.

Meanwhile, the sheriff sitting in the centre of this intervention and hauling Quinn to account, is a man called Matthew Elderfield. Elderfield, who is head of financial regulation at the Central Bank, has said there had been “serious and persistent breaches” of solvency rules at Quinn Insurance. He has said he felt the appointment of permanent administrators to take control of Quinn Insurance was the best option to ensure that 1.3 million policyholders were in “a safe and sound environment”, according to the Irish Times.

Elderfield says that he has said all along in discussions with Quinn: ‘Show me the money and we will take a different approach’, but no one has been forthcoming. The word is that the regulator believes the insurer requires about €700m, while the Quinn Group believes that up to €150m would raise its solvency. But expect this debate to rumble on after Monday, and even if a verdict is forthcoming.

Elderfield says he is “very sympathetic” to the concerns of the 5,500 workers at the group, but he had to ensure policyholders were protected. Meanwhile, it is understood that the provisional administrator has communicated to employees of Quinn to address their concerns about potential mass redundancies. The administrator has said that although it understands the call for a ban writing of business in the UK to be lifted, it cannot let external forces influence an independent review by the regulator.

Monday will be key, and many are already jumping to the consequences of any outcome before fully reflecting on what the options are for the group. The latest thinking is that this is not now about whether Quinn Insurance survives as an entity or not, but more about whether the Quinn family will control it when it does. And then in the bar rooms of the square mile in the city of London there is a mixture of people - from the ‘I told you so’ brigade, who blame everybody, to the smiling opportunists and then the serious senior management executives wondering why they have to endure painful, timely and costly Arrow visits from the FSA while this debacle was allowed to happen in the first place.

Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to come.