Silver lining for Quinn employees

The staff at Quinn Insurance are to have their bonuses restored from July 1 and will not face a compulsary redundancy scenario. The news was divulged to the 2,400 staff on Monday and comes almost three months after the firm was put into administration. Meanwhile, The Anglo-Celt has learned that there are now up on 70 expressions of interest from other insurance companies worldwide to purchase Quinn Insurance. In a statement yesterday (Tuesday), the insurance company said the level of interest in a voluntary redundancy package was so high that no compulsory redundancies would be necessary. Quinn Insurance also confirmed that bonuses schemes across all employees were being reintroduced from July 1. The performance-related schemes had previously been capped at 20% of salary and it is now understood that the bonus will now be operated at a mean of 15% because of the "financial position of the company". The chairperson of the Employee Representative Committee, Derek Smith, told The Anglo-Celt that the restoration of the bonus is "to encourage everyone back to a win win situation. There will now be an opportunity for people to gain financially, as a result of the additional effort they put into the business. It is a positive development and is well received by the staff". Seventy workers left the Cavan site for the last time on Friday evening after taking up voluntary redundancy and more employees will be leaving all sites on a phased basis over the coming months, until the 900 redundancies are realised. Meanwhile, the final preparations are being laid for the sale of Quinn Insurance. Australian bank Macquarie has been lined up to handle the deal and prospectuses are expected to be issued later in the week. But fears are rife that a new owner could impose further job cuts across Quinn Insurance's operations and many workers are understood to have opted to leave now in case future redundancy payments are less generous. Yesterday's statement also confirmed that the Quinn Group has decided to sell off Quinn Healthcare, along with the administrators' sale of Quinn Insurance. Industry sources are of the view that the Quinn Group could make as much as €20m from the sale of the health business, which has close to 510,000 subscribers. The insurance company's administrators are also awaiting a decision from the Financial Regulator on whether they can re-enter the commercial insurance market in the UK. Quinn Insurance was banned from taking on any new UK business when it entered administration, but has since been re-admitted to the UK's motor insurance market. The Financial Regulator has repeatedly declined to give a timeline on when the insurer might be re-admitted to the commercial market. Five directors have left the Board of Quinn Group (ROI) Ltd since the end of April, according to documents lodged with the Companies Registration Office (CRO). The directors who have stepped down include - Quinn Group chief executive, Liam McCaffrey; former GAA president, Peter Quinn and non-executives Brendan Tuohy and Pat O'Neill. The company has appointed Dave Mackey as a non-executive director and the other directors on the Board of Quinn Group ROI are Sean Quinn, Patricia Quinn, Dara O'Reilly and Kevin Lunney.