John Teeling | |
---|---|
Born | January 1946 (age 78) [1] |
Nationality | Irish |
Known for | Renewal of the Irish whiskey industry |
Spouse | Deirdre Teeling |
Children | 3, including Emma Teeling |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University College Dublin (B.Comm., M. Econ. Sci.), University of Pennsylvania (MBA), Harvard University (DBS) |
Thesis | The Evolution of Offshore Investment [2] (1975) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Business administration,finance |
Institutions | University College Dublin |
John James Teeling (born January 1946) is an Irish academic and businessperson,notable for the wide range of businesses he has developed or overhauled over several decades. In particular,he broke the Irish Distillers monopoly which existed in the Irish whiskey industry,by launching the Cooley Distillery,and reopened the 1757-founded Kilbeggan Distillery after a 50-year hiatus. [3] [4] [5] He is also notable for having brought ten companies to public listing on the London Stock Exchange,the most of any Irish person. [6] [7] [8] Teeling lectured at University College Dublin's business school for over 20 years. He authored a number of educational texts,for primary school and college. [9]
John James Teeling was born in January 1946, [1] the eldest of the four children of James "Jimmy" B. Teeling (died 1960) [10] and Emma "Emily" Teeling (née Kinsella,died 2005) of Hollybrook Road,Clontarf,an affluent northern suburb of Dublin,where he grew up. [11] His father was a Royal Liver Assurance agent,and Teeling has said that his family were neither rich nor poor,but were the first on their street to buy a television and a car. [7] His father also ran a small legal money-lending business,and John Teeling helped with this from the age of 12. With his father dying suddenly at home when John was 14,his mother assumed management of the money-lending business,with John taking certain responsibilities within it [6] while also working as a van boy for 1.50 pounds a week, [12] and completing school at St Joseph's CBS,Fairview. [13]
After school,Teeling secured a job in the Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB) but he did not feel he fitted the organisation [14] and instead won and took up a Dublin Corporation scholarship to University College Dublin (UCD),where he qualified with a Bachelors of Commerce,and then a Masters in Economic Science. [6] After graduation from UCD,he secured further scholarship funding,from the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, [14] to attend the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, [6] where he took an MBA. [13] In 1970,again securing scholarship support,this time from the Ford Foundation,he began to attend Harvard University,where,having studied the collapse of the Irish whiskey industry from accounting for 60% of world whiskey sales to holding a market share of under 2%,he completed a Doctorate in Business Studies in 1975. From an early stage he also performed private share dealings based on the Benjamin Graham model, [6] over the early 1970s making what was described as a "small fortune", [7] and continuing with significant share dealing until the mid-1980s. [15]
Teeling accepted a lecturing post at UCD in 1969, [13] at 19 pounds a week. [7] He taught at the university,in areas including Commerce and Business Administration,until 1988,when the demands of his business interests intervened. [6] During this period he also authored or co-authored a number of educational works. [16]
In the early stage of his work as a lecturer in finance and business at UCD,in 1969,Teeling was asked to provide some consultancy for Northgate Exploration,owners of the Tynagh Mine in County Galway,then the largest in Ireland [17] and then David Boyd Barrett asked him to take a consultant role with the new Tara Mines in County Meath,working from offices in Clontarf. [7] In addition to geological and other physical surveys,Teeling analysed placenames in Ireland to locate traditional areas where metals had been sourced historically. [8]
Teeling and various partners including Donal Kinsella also invested in a range of non-mining businesses. His policy was to buy in on value investing principles –he summarised his approach as attacking "moribund public companies with under-used assets" –rationalising or selling main business elements,and selling off,for example,unneeded properties. By 1986 the companies he had bought into and re-structured included large textile manufacturers Seafield Gentex and Glen Abbey [18] (in total Teeling worked with seven textile companies [7] ),Irish Wire Products,Irish Oil and Cake Mills,Irish Pharmaceuticals,and Dublin Gas. [18] [19] In the case of Dublin Gas,Teeling and Donal Kinsella bought-in,in the hope that gas might be discovered in recoverable quantities off the Dublin coast,and also with the idea of drawing fibre optic cables through the gas pipe network;Teeling exited soon after by selling his shares to Irish Life at a profit. [20] For most of the period Teeling worked part-time at UCD but he did take a break from lecturing for two years to work on Seafield Gentex. [19] [18] Although firmly declining investment in property at a personal level, [19] owning only his home and one neighbouring house,Teeling was chairman of a property company,Countyglen,for several years. [21]
In 1983 Teeling launched Minquest,an exploration investor which took shares in,and drove reforms of,a number of Irish mineral and hydrocarbon operations,including Kenmare Resources,Ovoca and Irish Marine Oil. The company's licences were eventually sold to Conroy and Teeling described the venture as so profitable that it was hard to repeat,saying "I should have quit after Minquest but I now wanted to set up and manage..." [19] He later set up African Gold,and when he sold that,managed a spin-off,West African Gold,and Botswana Diamonds,which in turn established a diamond-prospecting joint venture with Alrosa. [22] Other projects included Pan Andean Resources,Persian Gold,Clontarf Energy,Petrel Resources, [15] [12] and Connemara Mining (later Arkle Resources). [6] [13] He pursued opportunities in Ireland,Bolivia,Iran,Zimbabwe,Botswana, [7] and other countries.
He operates his businesses from a rented office building originally held by David Boyd Barrett,on the coast in Clontarf,near his home; [7] it has been described as "spartan" and he describes his approach as "I don't do overheads". [6] He disclaims deep understanding of IT but has described biotechnology and DNA,an area in which his daughter,academic Emma Teeling,works,as "the Internet of the future". [19] While mostly overseeing his ventures as chairman or executive chairman,and delegating routine management,Teeling has sometimes worked as managing director. As of July 2020,he has assumed the position of acting CEO at Arkle Resources plc.,following the abrupt departure of the previous CEO. [23]
Teeling was a long-term believer in the potential of the Irish whiskey market,stating that it has a gross return level on the order of 15 times base costs. [21] He explored the possibilities of whiskey distilling in the early 1970s while studying for a doctorate at Harvard,and wrote two related papers in 1971. [24] In 1987,Teeling founded the Cooley Distillery,on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth,taking over a disused State spirit factory,operated by Ceimici Teoranta. The project,which broke a monopoly in Irish whiskey production held by Irish Distillers, [5] took 11 years to reach annual profitability,and 15 years to make an accumulated surplus. He also took over Locke's Distillery in Kilbeggan,disused since the 1950s,and after a period operating simply as a maturing location, [5] it resumed full-scale production,as Kilbeggan Distillery,from 2007. [25]
Shortly after the previous monopoly whiskey manufacturer Irish Distillers was bought out by Pernod Ricard in 1988,it offered to buy Cooley for 24.5 million pounds,with an openly stated plan to close the business and raze the distillery. The offer,which would have provided a profitable payback to Cooley's investors,was blocked by Irish competition authorities,and subsequent financial challenges required Teeling to urgently secure stock advance sales and other financings,including further substantial personal investment. Teeling commented that there were in all three critical moments in the business's history when urgent financing was needed. The first distilling was completed in 1989,and after several years in casks,that first whiskey was released under the Tyrconnell brand in 1994. [17] Initially targeting markets in Spain and Portugal,the company found new potential in post-Soviet markets. [26] A sale to CL Financial almost materialised for 33 million euro in 2002, [5] and it was also almost sold to William Grant &Sons, [5] before finally being bought for 72.8 million euro by Beam in 2012. [13] Teeling commented that the aftermath of the sale was the first time he had been out of debt since before his marriage,probably since he was 17,having had loans for expenses related to his education and business ventures. [27]
Teeling bought the former Harp Brewery in Dundalk,County Louth,in 2013,after the brewing operation had been moved to St James's Gate in Dublin by Diageo. The venture was started with his Irish Whiskey Company, [8] [1] and this was bought out by another Teeling family enterprise,Great Northern Distillery Ltd.,in a deal which valued the enterprise,at this early stage,at over 120 million euro. [28] The business trades as Great Northern Distillery and primarily sells to own brands or private labels and others needing a supply of bulk whiskey;as of 2017,it was producing over 6 million litres annually. [17] Teeling also invested in a 7% shareholding in his sons' Teeling Whiskey Company in 2012,alongside a similar investment by his wife;this company later went on to open the first new distillery in Dublin in 125 years,the Teeling Distillery. [7] [29]
Teeling is a high-profile figure in Irish business,regularly quoted in the media. He also performs talks and speeches at business group meetings and other events. [8]
Teeling has written or co-authored a number of academic texts,one for primary school,the remainder for tertiary studies: [9]
Teeling married Deirdre Teeling in 1971;they have three children and have lived throughout in the same house on Seafield Road in Clontarf. He also bought the neighbouring house to prevent any development there. Deirdre Teeling is an educationalist,who worked for many years as a guidance counsellor in second-level Mercy College in nearby Coolock. [30] Emma,Jack,and Stephen,and several grandchildren. Of the children,Emma Teeling is a zoologist,genomicist and evolutionary biologist,and a professor at UCD,while Jack and Stephen worked at Cooley Distillery, [7] and then went on to set up their own distillery project,the first new distillery in Dublin in 125 years. [31]
John Teeling is a teetotaler. [5] He continued to play rugby union football into his 70s; [7] he also follows cricket. [12] His brother Jim (James),who died in 2014, [32] taught Business Studies in the secondary school they had attended,St Joseph's,Fairview,to which John Teeling has contributed with scholarships and funding for after-school classes. [8]
Irish whiskey is whiskey made on the island of Ireland. The word 'whiskey' comes from the Irish uisce beatha,meaning water of life. Irish whiskey was once the most popular spirit in the world,though a long period of decline from the late 19th century onwards greatly damaged the industry,so much so that although Ireland boasted at least 28 distilleries in the 1890s,by 1966 this number had fallen to just two,and by 1972 the remaining distilleries,Bushmills Distillery and Old Midleton Distillery,were owned by just one company,Irish Distillers.
Clontarf is an affluent coastal suburb on the Northside of Dublin in the city's Dublin 3 postal district. Historically,there were two centres of population,one on the coast towards the city,and the fishing village of Clontarf Sheds,further north on the coast at what is now Vernon Avenue. Clontarf has a range of retail businesses in several locations,mainly centred on Vernon Avenue. It adjoins Fairview,Marino,Killester and Raheny. Clontarf is in the jurisdiction of Dublin City Council.
The Old Bushmills Distillery is an alcohol distillery in Bushmills,County Antrim,Northern Ireland,founded in 1784 and owned by Proximo Spirits. Bushmills Distillery uses water drawn from Saint Columb's Rill,which is a tributary of the River Bush. The distillery is a popular tourist attraction,with around 120,000 visitors per year. It produces the Bushmills brand of Irish whiskey.
Jameson is a blended Irish whiskey produced by the Irish Distillers subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. Originally one of the six main Dublin whiskeys at the Jameson Distillery Bow St.,Jameson is now distilled at the New Midleton Distillery in County Cork. It is by far the best-selling Irish whiskey in the world;in 2019,annual sales passed 8 million cases. It has been sold internationally since the early 19th century,and is available to buy in over 130 countries.
Cooley Distillery is an Irish whiskey distillery on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth,Ireland founded in 1987 and owned by Suntory Global Spirits,an subsidiary of Suntory Holdings of Osaka,Japan.
Kilbeggan Distillery is an Irish whiskey distillery situated on the River Brosna in Kilbeggan,County Westmeath,Ireland. It is owned by Suntory Global Spirits,an subsidiary of Suntory Holdings of Osaka,Japan. A small pot still distillery,the licence to distil dates to 1757,a copy of which can be seen in the distillery.
Powers is a brand of Irish whiskey produced by the Irish Distillers subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. Historically a single pot still whiskey,the flagship Powers Gold Label brand was the first Irish whiskey ever to be bottled. Powers Gold Label was the best-selling whiskey in Ireland.
The Midleton distilleries complex is situated in Midleton,County Cork,Ireland. Established in 1975 and owned by Irish Distillers,a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. Located alongside is the Old Midleton Distillery,which was established in the early 17th century and now operates as a visitor centre known as the Jameson Experience.
Irish Distillers is a subsidiary of the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard. It is the largest distiller of Irish whiskey,distilling popular brands such as Jameson and Powers,in addition to premium whiskeys such as Redbreast and Midleton Very Rare. In addition to whiskey,Irish Distillers also produces a number of other spirit products such as gin and vodka.
The Great Northern Brewery,on the Carrick Road,Dundalk,County Louth,was an Irish brewery. It was home to Harp Lager,and was formerly owned by Diageo. In 2015 the brewery closed,and production of Harp Lager and other products was moved to St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin. The site has since been bought by John Teeling,and converted for operation as a distillery,the Great Northern Distillery.
Suntory Global Spirits, formerly known as Beam Suntory,Inc.,is the American subsidiary of the Japanese beverage company Suntory. The company produces alcoholic beverages.
Knappogue Castle Irish Whiskey is a brand of premium single malt Irish whiskey produced by the Irish Distillers subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. The brand is named for historic Knappogue Castle in County Clare,Ireland,originally built by Clan MacNamara in 1467. Knappogue Castle is known for bottling one of the oldest and rarest known Irish whiskies,Knappogue Castle 1951,a pot still whiskey produced at the now-defunct B. Daly Distillery.
The Jameson Experience,Midleton,is an Irish whiskey museum and visitor centre located in the Old Midleton Distillery in Midleton,County Cork,Ireland. Set over 15 acres,since opening as a visitor's centre in 1992,the old distillery has received approximately 100,000 guests per year,receiving 125,000 in 2015.
Teeling Distillery is an Irish whiskey distillery established in Dublin in 2015 by the Teeling Whiskey Company. It is the first new whiskey distillery to have opened in Dublin,once a world whiskey distilling capital,in over 125 years. In fact,with the last of the original Dublin distilleries having closed in 1976,it is the first whiskey distillery to operate in Dublin,once home to at least 37 distilleries,in almost 40 years.
The Dundalk Distillery was an Irish whiskey distillery that operated in Dundalk,County Louth,Ireland between 1708 and 1926. It is thought to have been one of the old registered distilleries in Ireland. Two of the distillery buildings,the grain store and maltings,still exist and now house the County Museum and Dundalk Library.
The Old Tullamore Distillery was an Irish whiskey distillery which was established in Tullamore,County Offaly,Ireland,in 1829. The original home of Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey,the distillery closed in 1954,having endured financial difficulties for many years,like many Irish whiskey distilleries of the early 20th century.
John Brannick was an Irish whiskey maker,and founder and master distiller of the Dublin Whiskey Distillery Company.
Bishop's Water Distillery was an Irish whiskey distillery which operated in Wexford,Ireland between 1827 and 1914. The distillery was named for a stream which ran along the back of the distillery,the Bishop's Water,said to possess "various occult properties derived from the blessings of the sainted Bishop of Ferns".
Emma Caroline Teeling is an Irish zoologist,geneticist and genomicist,who specialises in the phylogenetics and genomics of bats. Her work includes understanding of the bat genome and study of how insights from other mammals such as bats might contribute to better understanding and management of ageing and a number of conditions,including deafness and blindness,in humans. She is the co-founder of the Bat1K project to map the genomes of all species of bat. She is also concerned with understanding of the places of bats in the environment and how to conserve their ecosystem.
Thesis—Harvard University. Graduate School of Business Administration.
So did John Teeling, who in the late 1980s, after years of planning and work, ended Irish Distillers' longtime monopoly when he launched Cooley Distillery.
.. at his residence, 18 Hollybrook Road, Clontarf .. beloved husband of Emily Teeling, and late of the Royal Liver Friendly Society ...
wife of the late Jimmy and beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother; deeply regretted by John, Jim, Barry and Mary
... has founded nine stock exchange-listed companies ... Many thought Mr Teeling was insane when he took on the might of Irish Distillers, the then monopoly producer. ...believes that whiskey is a great business from an Irish perspective: "The value added is 15 times. .. Most of the value-added stays in Ireland."
Non-executive chairman John Teeling has taken the role of acting chief executive.
On 19th March 2007, 250 years after the first licence was granted, distillation once again started at the distillery.
I saw grain .. grown and sold for €300 a tonne when it could be sold, as whiskey, for a multiple ... by 1993 the firm was running short of cash ... with the fall of the former Soviet Union and the Russians desire for whiskey ... people praise .. his illuminating foresight in predicting the demise of Soviet Russia. He said: 'I didn't see that, or the opening up of China and other .. at all. We thought Portugal and Spain would be the main markets for Cooley ...
After [the sale of] Cooley Distillery was closed on January 16, my wife asked if this was the first time since we were married that I wasn't in debt.
Great Northern Distillery .. and the Irish Whiskey Company. GND has now acquired IWC's part of the site in .. deal that involved issuing €3 million worth of new shares to reflect the value of IWC's share of the site. The value .. means that GND is now valued at €122.6 million.
...In 2012, company shares totalling €1.3 million were sold to Teeling family members with share ownership split between...: Jack (43%), Stephen (37%), their parents, John and Deirdre (7% each), and their sister, Emma (6%). TWC is a self-funded entity aside from asset-based loans for inventory...
"Mercy College... 32 years... started in 1979 as a newly qualified Guidance Counsellor
TEELING James (Clontarf) Died December 11, 2014