In 1986, Sean FitzPatrick became chief executive of a small Irish commercial lender known as the City of Dublin Bank. Over the course of the next 18 years, FitzPatrick oversaw the growth of the City of Dublin bank into the 3rd largest bank in Ireland. By May 2007 the bank, now known as the Anglo Irish Bank, reached a peak value of €13 billion with a share price of €17.60.
Little over a year later, in December 2008, FitzPatrick stunned the financial world by announcing his resignation as chairman of the Anglo Irish Bank. The revelation that FitzPatrick had hidden over €87 million in loans he had made to himself capped off a tumultuous series of months that had seen the Bank’s value drop from a high of €13 billion to a low of €242 million. In the coming days, several more directors resigned over loan irregularities that threatened the financial integrity of the bank.
On 15 January 2009, the Irish government announced that it would nationalize the beleaguered bank. What went wrong? This case study will attempt to examine the ethical failings by senior executives that led to the collapse of the Anglo Irish Bank and continue to plague it to this day.