The day I predicted the downfall of Tony O’Reilly
Regarded for much of his life as the most successful Irishman in modern history, the industrialist’s charm wasn’t enough to save his business empire.
“You know what this says?” Tony O’Reilly barked down the phone to his publicist. “This says that Tony O’Reilly is finished!”
And the finish line was drawing closer, financially, for one of the greatest business figures to emerge from the British Isles after World War II. That day, though, the object of the agitation was a front-page profile in The Wall Street Journal written by me, which pointed out that O’Reilly would struggle to the repay the debts on his Irish newspaper business, Independent News & Media, which had been hit by a collapse in property prices. Australians called it the global financial crisis.
Seven years later, a man who had been Ireland’s richest would endure the shame of personal bankruptcy. Broken, he retired to a French estate maintained through the personal wealth of his wife, Greek heiress Chryss Goulandris. He died aged 88 on May 18.
Sir Anthony O’Reilly (right) leaves the Supreme Court of NSW in 1995 with his wife, Chryss Goulandris, and son Cameron. Kate Callas
When I interviewed O’Reilly over lunch at his offices on the outskirts of Dublin in early 2009, he demonstrated a charm famous on both sides of the Atlantic. A natural impersonator, he mimicked figures he knew well, including actor Sean Connery, diplomat Henry Kissinger and Washington Post owner Katharine Graham. One story – about a tin of Heinz baked beans found in a camp in Antarctica still edible decades later – was delivered so perfectly it felt honed through repetition.
But asked to explain how he was going to save Independent News & Media, one of Ireland’s great raconteurs couldn’t extend himself beyond bromides. “It is impossible that if Ireland does not do well, that any of us can do well,” he said.
As the Irish-born chief executive, and then chairman, of the HJ Heinz food group through the 1980s, O’Reilly became a major figure in corporate America. In 1991, he was the S&P500’s best-paid chairman. After amassing a fortune in the US, O’Reilly returned in glory to his home town, Dublin, where he held Rupert Murdoch-like sway over media, politics and business.
Rupert Murdoch in 2008, when O’Reilly sought his help to fend off another Irish businessman. Rob Homer
The two media barons knew each other well. While I was working on the O’Reilly article, Rupert Murdoch stopped by my cubicle in the Journal’s London newsroom. A lover of gossip, especially of the media, Murdoch revealed that O’Reilly had encouraged him to become a minority shareholder in Independent News & Media.
O’Reilly had been caught in a battle-to-the-death fight with an Irish telecommunications billionaire, Denis O’Brien, for control of the company. O’Brien seemed determined to break O’Reilly.
No one really knew why, although O’Reilly’s publicists claimed it was because O’Reilly’s newspapers had exposed unethical behaviour by O’Brien over a phone licence. (O’Brien, who spent years defending himself through an official inquiry, was never charged. He lost hundreds of millions on the newspapers too.)
Perhaps sensing it was a fight worth avoiding, Murdoch declined to enter the share register on O’Reilly’s side. It was a hard, late lesson for O’Reilly: even if their politics align, media moguls don’t stick together.
As big as Ben Hur
There was another lesson there too: PR isn’t equity. O’Reilly’s standing in Irish society was clearly of great importance to him. A businessman, an athlete, it was thought that O’Reilly was the best Ireland could be. In our interview, he said he could have become prime minister. “I would have been in contention,” he said. His biography was titled The Maximalist.
A common story was that he was asked to audition for the lead in the 1959 movie Ben Hur. O’Reilly was never in serious contention for the role and “rather encouraged this distortion of the truth”, according to his biographer.
In 2001, the Queen appointed him a knight – a title not recognised in the Republic of Ireland. Upon his death, Irish newspapers still referred to him as Mr O’Reilly.
Often called Ireland’s first billionaire – although that never seems to have been confirmed – O’Reilly’s political instincts were typical of any big industrialist. He believed in low taxes and government support for select industries, including his own. Politicians who upset him got critical coverage.
His Irish newspapers leaned right. His British daily, The Independent, was on the left. His Australian newspapers, which were mostly nonpartisan, were bought from News Corp in 1987 for $150 million and renamed APN News & Media. In 2016, News Corp bought many of them back for $37 million.
Newspapers published by APN News & Media. Bloomberg
O’Reilly wanted the same influence in Australia he had in Ireland. In 1989, he approached Warwick Fairfax, the owner of the John Fairfax Group, with an offer that would have parallels with his conversation with Murdoch 20 years later.
Fairfax was going broke. Its proprietor had taken on a large debt to buy the business, which a recession had made unsustainable. In the language of the time, O’Reilly was offering to be a white knight. Fairfax rebuffed him, and lost the company.
Two years later, O’Reilly allied himself with a rival Fairfax family member, John Brehmer Fairfax. They were after Fairfax’s best assets. “There are 20 great newspapers in the world and Fairfax has two of them: The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age,” O’Reilly said. “This is a very special opportunity to acquire two great newspapers.”
They were outbid by Canadian Conrad Black, who would go jail in 2007 for fraud.
Unfulfilled expectations
Meanwhile, O’Reilly used the Australian outpost to build up the management experience of his sons. At its peak, in 2007 APN reported revenue of $1.35 billion and operating profit $352 million, making it one of Australia’s bigger media companies. Gavin O’Reilly was chairman. Brother Cameron had been chief executive from 1995 to 2000.
For years, Tony O’Reilly talked about merging APN with John B. Fairfax’s country newspaper group, Rural Press. The combined company would be big enough, the theory went, to buy Fairfax Media, the renamed John Fairfax Group.
John B. Fairfax sold to Fairfax in 2006, effectively ending O’Reilly’s newspaper expansion options in Australia. Two years later, out of financial desperation, O’Reilly sold his 39 per cent APN stake.
The Irish economy was collapsing. Property prices had been decimated, and his assets could not cover the €195 million ($300 million) he owed. O’Reilly’s creditor banks had decided to pursue him personally.
O’Reilly successfully sought bankruptcy protection in the Bahamas. christiesrealestate.com
For a man whose identity was tied to his nationality, O’Reilly’s solution wasn’t entirely honourable. He sought bankruptcy protection in the Bahamas, where he lived on a smallish island among the fellow ultrarich.
A lead creditor, Allied Irish Banks, unsuccessfully fought to have his bankruptcy managed in Ireland. Operating under Bahamian law, O’Reilly was able to exert more control over the disposal of his assets. Still, the public liquidation added to the humiliation – and created opportunities for others to benefit from his failure.
John Malone, a US media billionaire, bought O’Reilly’s country castle, where he had buried his parents, for €28 million. An antique table and set of chairs sold for more about €74,000. O’Reilly had used it for dinner with former US president Bill Clinton and South African leader Nelson Mandela.
O’Reilly remained a bankrupt until January 4, 135 days before his death at the age of 88.
In a rare public appearance in 2018, he sounded philosophical about his life: “You win and you lose. And if you don’t know how to lose, you don’t know how to live.”
Sir Anthony O’Reilly, born May 7, 1936, died May 18, 2024
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