Quinn admitted to being greedy in buying Anglo stake, court hears
The trial of three former Anglo Irish Bank executives has heard businessman Sean Quinn admitted to the financial regulator that he had been greedy in building up a stake in the bank.
Willie McAteer, Sean FitzPatrick and Pat Whelan deny providing unlawful financial assistance
to the Quinn family and a group called the Maple ten to buy the bank's shares in July 2008.
The jury has heard that Sean Quinn met the then financial regulator Patrick Neary just weeks before the "St Patrick's Day massacre" when billions were wiped off the Irish stock exchange in 2008.
By this stage the businessman had lost €1bn gambling on the share price of Anglo Irish Bank through Contracts for Differences.
The minutes of the meeting record that Mr Quinn said he deeply regretted the situation and expressed the view he had been greedy with CFDs and needed to be reigned in.
However, he was of the view it would be a mistake to sell the CFDs in an uncontrolled fashion.
Pat Whelan's lawyers have put it to Liam McCaffrey, the former CEO of the Quinn group, that it would not have been in Anglo's interest to have a large number of stock dumped on the market when the share price was low.
He has agreed that Anglo provided finance for Mr Quinn to fill the big hole made by CFD losses.
