Idea for Anglo hotel fund raised at Stones concert

A US businessman has told the Commercial Court his proposal to Anglo Irish Bank to sponsor a New York hotels investment fund was first suggested at a Rolling Stones concert in New York in September 2005.

Anglo confirmed it would get involved when he was its guest at the Six Nations rugby tournament in Paris in February 2006, Timothy Haskin said.

Mr Haskin, general partner with Anglo in the Anglo Irish Hotels Fund, began evidence yesterday in proceedings by businessman Gerard McCaughey over the Anglo Irish New York Fund, a private equity investment in which 50 people invested an average $1 million each in 2006. Mr McCaughey’s action is a test case for 23 other investors in the fund.