The Leader Interview..with Denis Brosnan, Chair of Mid-West Taskforce
WHEN the Tanaiste asked Denis Brosnan if he could chair the regional jobs task force, the former Kerry Group boss told her he had a few things going on and he'd have to consider it carefully before giving an answer.
The chairman of Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) said he was only "70 or 80 per cent there" when Minister of State Peter Power blazed out of the starting gate with a premature announcement that he had taken the job. Mr Brosnan told the Leader later that morning he needed another weekend to think it over. After all, planning a more sustainable employment base for an entire region isn't something you are asked to do every day, even for Denis Brosnan. And like he said, he has a few things going on.
Number one, he's retired. But chairing both the international healthcare group Barchester and the state racing body is not everybody's idea of retirement. It's currently foaling season at the stud farm he owns by the Maigue in Croom and he also keeps horses in Kentucky "to spread the risk of the thoroughbred industry". And since retiring from Kerry, Denis Brosnan has been able to throw himself back into community affairs and is chairman of a reinvigorated development association looking to bring more industry and amenities to Croom.
Then there's Lydian Capital, the private equity group he founded which is backed by JP McManus and John Magnier and which has been featuring in the business pages either buying up or being involved in the bidding for everything from radio stations and hotel chains to breakfast cereals and sausage skin makers at home and abroad.
But it wasn't his involvement in high stakes international business deals that prevented him from giving Minister Mary Coughlan an answer straightaway.
"There are some peripheral things (like Lydian). But when you go into this week or next week and start to think about what you have to do, first and foremost, it's the care business (Barchester) because that's across a number of continents. Secondly, it's the thoroughbred racing industry in Ireland, from racing itself on the racetrack to the totality of the industry, which is one of the major farming activities in the country. There are 20,000 people involved and in dairy you'd have about 40,000 at present. That takes quite a bit of time. I retired to spend more time on our own farm. It runs if I'm not here but I like to be here. Obviously, putting the task force in on top of that makes it a busy week," he says with typical understatement.
"I had been talking with herself (the Tanaiste) and her office for quite a number of weeks and the obvious answer would have been to say no because firstly I'm retired and secondly we do run one of the biggest nursing care groups in the UK. I retired to do that and spend more time here on the farm in Croom. Chairing the task force would be an onerous task on top of that. But I suppose I was being pushed, one by the Tanaiste and even moreso even by my own conscience. I said 'OK, Can I put another 15 or 18 months or whatever it takes into this and if I can contribute, I'll contribute'. Maybe I was 70 or 80 per cent when I asked to Tanaiste to leave me alone and I'd give her an answer the following week. Peter (Power) was a bit fast with the remark but probably if I were in his shoes, maybe I'd be saying the same thing and announce good news if there is to be good news."
Unfortunately, there isn't much of that on the jobs front as he candidly admits. Retraining laid-off workers and finding replacement jobs are for later and the 10-person task force is for the moment still assessing the scale of the challenge (See PAGE ONE).
"We have never been in this (economic) situation before. The sad thing about it is I keep saying we will all look back on the first quarter of 2009 and say things were not so bad. That's simply a reflection of how much worse they are going to get and people haven't stopped to think in terms of the jobs that are going to be lost in Ireland and worldwide. We have forgotten other groups of people. There are a lot of students coming onto the market in June and in the past if they couldn't get a job in ireland, they had somewhere else to go. They went to the USA, they went to the UK, to Australia. There is nowhere to go."
Providing jobs, in the context of the task force, is for another day but Denis Brosnan and the Croom Community Development Association have already advanced plans that will create jobs in that town.
He moved to Croom in 1986 in order to be closer to Shannon Airport. That was the year the Kerry Group was floated on the stock exchange and Denis Brosnan was jetting around the world visiting Kerry-owned factories or making strategic acquisitions as Kerry blazed a trail not seen before from an Irish multinational. He was travelling continuously for the best part of 30 years.
"Then in the early 90s, the then-Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, came after me in Kerry to start a programme which resulted in Kerry Airport being built," he says. To prove it, there's a photo hanging on the wall with Denis Brosnan, Charlie and PJ Mara at the opening in Farranfore.
To heap on the irony, Shannon began to lose services and he found himself using the airport less and less.
"It affects my life in a big way. This week, I was in London already and flew out of Cork. Next Monday, I have to fly out of Dublin. So I just don't stop and think anymore and drive to whichever airport is suitable. But I hope that Shannon can get some of it (lost services) restored again. As of now, Shannon has fallen further and further down my priorities. I'm a business traveller, which means you have to have a variety of flights and times. Already this week, I was in London on an early flight, worked all day and get the late flight home. You can't do that from Shannon any more."
Told about the new early morning slots to London and Paris from Shannon starting soon, he smiles and says "that's good news, that will probably work for me".
But Shannon is nowhere near what it once was. "Maybe I didn't need to move here (Croom) at all. But that's history".
And the people of Croom are glad of that. Though he lives behind high walls on Croom House Stud, the Brosnans are integral members of the community. It's a short hop across the road from the foot of the passage to mass. Storan's pub is around the corner on Bridge Street for the occasional drink if time permits.
The original structure of Croom House dates from the late 18th century and it was owned by Ray Fitzjohn, Lord Harrington's stud manager, before the Brosnans moved in. During the Emergency, the Army was billeted there "to stop the Germans coming up the Shannon". In a scene straight out of Killinaskully, two soldiers came back from the pub one night and accidentally exploded a magazine which damaged a number of houses in the town.
Soon after moving to Croom, Denis Brosnan threw himself into fundraising for the community centre. Four golf classics he organised raised €200,000, two thirds of the cost of the facility. It was built and within a short period, the likes of Meatloaf and Status Quo were playing to packed houses in Croom. To this day it is used seven days a week and is a valuable resource for Croom's large schoolgoing population.
Now Denis Brosnan is back for more. Since retiring from Kerry, he has again become actively involved in developing the community.
Residents feel that while the County Council has been quick to build houses in Croom, they have not been as good to provide services or industry. With 15 people working on the stud farm, Denis Brosnan is himself one of the area's biggest employers.
"Croom has virutally no industry. We are here, there's an engineering works here and that's it. So with the County Council, we have negotiated that they will give us three acres to start building a small technology park and that's about to start as well. The Council have been quite helpful. But the background is that maybe we are knocking on the door very loudly at this stage because we think Croom has been a forgotten community."
As well as the technology park, the Croom Community Development Association is planning to extend and refurbish the community centre, develop the Well Meadow town park and build a new car park in the town.
But he balks at the suggestion that the county manager might pay more attention to a letter from Denis Brosnan, giant of Irish business, than from Johnny Murphy, hon. sec. of the Ballymagash Residents Association.
"I don't think it's matter of sending a letter and lobbying. It's pulling one's weight at your own side, which is saying 'Look we can do so much now will you come in and help'. It is a very active board of directors that was put together in 2008 and they are always hungry for work and are always as engaged as I am in trying to make Croom a better place."
No less than in Croom, the people of the Mid-West will hope Denis Brosnan can again work the oracle of creating wealth through employment and opportunity.
Over 120 jobs could soon be created if Barchester group he chairs gets permission for a 99-bed nursing home in Raheen. Supporting documentation for the plans, which are currently at An Bord Pleanala, says the home would exceed HIQA standards for individual and communal space.
"We are very much recognised as the quality operator in the market. We set the standards particularly in the UK we set the standards and not follow. It doesn't matter what type of resident we have, young, old, disabled, they will be better off in a Barchester home. I'm not sure what we have applied for in Limerick to be honest. For me, it's just one of the other applications that is being processed, whether it be Limerick Illinois, England or Scotland, it's another one that's being processed right now," he says.
When he is asked what he is most proud of in business, the boy who used to hitch a ride on the creamery cart to school says it is "bringing some wealth" to North Kerry and Ireland.
Farmers still held plc shares which are worth more today than the three big banks combined, something he never saw happening. Kerry workers who bought into a Government scheme to invest in their companies in the 1980s had seen a 750 sum grow to €30,000.
Kerry's new boss and his old friend Stan McCarthy had delivered "a tremendous set of results" in his first year and Mr Brosnan is expecting a handsome dividend of his own in the post some day soon.
Kerry shares are still a good buy but caution is the operative word, he counsels.
"It's a time to be safe. The Bank of Ireland shares were 12 cent yesterday. That valued the Bank of Ireland at €120 million. Two or three days before, they were at 24 cent but if you go back to this time last year they were somewhere in the order of €12. Whatever that was, they have lost 99 per cent of their value. It's something I could never have seen."
Before Denis Brosnan heads off for a jobs task force meeting, we ask him for a tip for Cheltenham for Limerick Leader readers. He is hosting owners and breeders at a HRI event but doesn't have the time "to spend four days at Cheltenham any more".
He fancies the French horse Kasbah Bliss, a racing certainty in Thursday's Ladbrokes World Hurdle! But as Mr Brosnan says, it is a time for caution. Though he once famously gambled the fortunes of the Kerry Group on acquiring US ingredients group Beatreme, it was for strategic thinking, diversification of business activities and the long-term game where Denis Brosnan made his mark on Irish business. The Tanaiste and thousands of workers in the Mid-West will be hoping he can work this magic on the task force.
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