Or should I say, to realize a synergy?
Barry O'Callaghan, the little minnow, swallowed a whale that ended up consuming him. He's off to pursue other ventures, as they say.
In his wake, he leaves an ocean of debt that finally did him in. He borrowed so heavily, shifted and adjusted and synergized to the full extent, but time was against him.
You don't honestly believe he left of his own accord, do you?
John Paulson, whose hedge fund took over the struggling EMPG-HMH-Riverdeep-etc., etc., etc., knew he had a potential winner. The concept of the world's biggest educational publishing materials company works well in theory. The problem came in the practice, at a time when the world's economy fell into the deep end and the principles of debt financing had to be re-aligned.
Not to worry. Mr. O'Callaghan has plenty of other investments in hotels (tourism's down in Ireland, wouldn't you know) and there's always stock holdings (not worth what they once were, sadly).
Like so many other of Ireland's Celtic Tiger millionaires, he'll find other streams to swim up.
If worse comes to worse, he might find an opening at Credit Suisse, from whence he came. After all, he's demonstrated a certain gift for money manipulation. You can be sure that he's learned a hard lesson and won't be so eager to overextend himself in the future.
He's swallowed his last whale. But that's not to say that he won't nibble on the occasional cod.
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