The J.P. McManus operation

To be fair you only have to look at them in the parade ring to know which operation is targeting graded races. Most that run in the green and gold are bought as job horses.

McManus sees an easy bumper winner from a small trainer and owner and he's on the phone 2 seconds later, impulse buying, money to burn, and why wouldn't the connections except such an outrageous offer for a 4 legged animal with no balls?. There might be an argument to say that JP is one of the biggest suckers in racing?, but if one out of a hundred gets him a publicity stunt in the Cheltenham parade ring job done, "the scourge of the bookmakers" headlined in all the papers, blah blah effing blah.

By god he does buy more than his fair share of Yaks all the same.

some people never have a good word to say about anything.

I've never heard of JP shafting anyone in the racing game and he is loyal to the end. It is a strange operation that he finds himself paying for but who knows what happens behind the scenes.

Western Man and Ronnie O'Leary would be my idea of a horse to be on in a handicap hurdle at Limerick over Christmas; running him in a chase recently at Wexford was probably the prep run. Alternatively, there are a few handicaps that are targetted before Christmas that have landed touches over the years.

Old saying , if it was that easy , everyone would be doing it  , Ozy .

JP's trick , if it can be described as such , was in using his initially hard won  assets to good effect .  Part of his success was in picking good people to employ to advise him and to work with . In that respect he seems to have ultimate loyalty as no-one seems to leave and he is ( apparently ) still operating successfully . Have to give him big credit for a lot of reasons .

How many  contributors to these columns would you employ , Ozy  in his circumstances ?

The man is a complete mystery to me.

His wikipedia entry is telling; It is unclear how McManus accumulated his vast wealth and what his expertise is

Very little is known about his currency operation. 

Compared with focus and efficency of Gigginstown, his NH operation appears to be a shambles.

But shure he is a great fella.

Its interesting that no one seems to know exactly how Mc Manus made his money or how much he is worth.


Its seems he won money as a punter on the horses in his early life but its speculated he is a billionaire. Now i know its possible to use leverage to finance deals but he must be on some run to turn his early modest wealth into so much by dealing on the currency markets. You would have thought at some point over the years he would have bet big on the currency markets took a hit. In such a speculative market he seems bomb proof even in world recessions.

Abromovich can seem to account for his vast wealth but Mc Manus is a complete mystery man.Every town in Ireland has a person who is a mystery man where folk think how does so and so do it with no visible means of income. But Mc Manus is an international mystery man on a different level. Reminds me of the old Gregory Peck film, the million pound note.

If he really is worth around a billion then tens of millions here and there on horses is no big deal. All part of the advertising budget to make him a celebrity in business where he can mix with sporting stars and the likes.

Would you rather have a billion and be unknown or spend 20 million of that billion to be close friends with Tiger Woods.

Royal acad. No offence meant here but you have made two points in your post.However I can safely say that one of them is the most deluded I have ever read on this forum. As to which one I'm sure most will know . once again ,no offence meant

I know you are referring to the pound PA but I believe a large percentage of his wealth was made on the devaluation of the Mexican Peso in the early 90s.

Some of the earlier posts on this thread are as "green" as I have ever seen on here.

The "green" reference Pa had more to do with the accumulation of his initial chips and him never shafting anyone in the racing game.
Having said that I believe his son Ciaran takes an avid interest in the racing operation so wouldn't be surprised if there is a profit being turned somewhere.

Silver G would enjoy this with good old Brosnan and his croom house stud.
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/magnier-and-mcmanus-are-poised-to-offload-castlebeck-3319797.html

jp as he freely admits is a gambler, who for most of his life was in boom or bust mode. part of his successful stint when bookmaking/gambling would have bordered on risque practices by times.

the irish world of stock broking up until the early 80's was a small entidy controlled mainly by old money jewish families in dublin. a young hungry turk called dermot desmond joined one such firm NCB, worked his way up the ladder, whilst in unison becoming part of the shelbourne set. the latter link eventually brought its rewards as NCB when desmond rose to the top there, got the haughey/ff nod of approval and were rewarded some lucrative floatations, and loads of dosh came into the coffers. desmond was hungry, inventive, ambitious and unlike many others in the what was a conserative leaning industry, willing to take an investment punt. aided by one of the best teams in the broking arena they made a number of wise and profitable investments.

somewhere along the line, as desmond sought to play in deeper financial pools, he sought out fellow investors/gamblers who were prepared to help up the stakes. magnier and mcmanus came aboard.
at the time, in the early 1990's from what i can remember, mcmanus would have been worth less than a couple of million.

the key investment deal was the collapse of the peso in the mid 90's.
in the space of a day or two, the peso fell from 4-1 v the dollar to 7-1 v the dollar, and short sellers were cleaning up, the US govenment pumped in billions to halt the decline. apparently many big european currency players were set up for life as a result of the profits they earned due to the collapse. it is assumed the irish players were amongst those that profited.

a key point to make on the peso collapse, is that the mexican government were in turmoil for many months and a collapse was inevitable. importantly, from the mega profitable short selling game, it was a massive advantage to know, close to hand, when the actual collapse would happen. it has been claimed that certain individuals within the mexican system, on the eve of the collapse, marked the cards of certain currency speculating firms, and these firms were the ones that made a mint. hence the old " inside info" much talked about within racing, was critical in what is viewed as the pivotal currency play of the era.
if you do your homework, you will note that jp from that point starting getting bigger and bigger, and now has his own currency/investment squad.

my summary, desmond had the business knowledge and initiative, add in the likes of magniers and jps natural inclination to take a gamble, and marrying at the right time, turned jp from a boom/bust bookmaker/punter into a multi millionaire. not a chance you would make 20 or 30 million punting on horses or sports, as no one would lay you in the long run.

as someone has pointed out, i would say 90%+ of jps wealth has been earned through investments outside of ireland, so you can argue that by buying all these horses and looking after scores of trainers he is inward investing.

Yes , Ozy , I know someone who works for/ with him . Have not spoken to him for many years though , he moved away from here a while ago and I have only seen him once in about the last 10 years , and the opportunity to speak with him did not happen as we were both in company in the same restaurant and it was only a nodding exchange . Horsey intersts too my acquaintance  , plus banking all his working life when he retired he was at the top in banking circles . Shrewd cookie , but decent also , true Irish .

Like most of the older guys on here I have had bets with JP way back in the 70's when he was a mere gossoon ( not sure on the spelling ) and he was down the line . The other bookies of that time ( a different breed from the current bean counters ) all respected JP and were happy to do business with him , his record was good . Not to be mentioned in same breath as certain Russian oligarchs . He doesn't fire managers the way most of us change our shoes .

Ozy, you dont get that successful by being a nice guy.

wixim,

its difficult to debate with someone who tells you that he has a bigger dick than you and yet keeps it in his trousers

keen leader, I think you will also find a strong correlation between the peso devaluation and the increased spending by Coolmore on higher-profile third party stallion prospects.

There was a time in the early nineties where they had a voracious appetite for every modest stallion prospect that came on the market: Shalford, Tenby, Distinctly North (!!!) etc etc. My guess is that from mid-nineties onwards the Ballydoyle project became a plan and, overseas, they started to buy top prospects like Cigar, Hennessy and other pedigrees that had been previously outside their budget.

I've mislaid a few of their older brochures so I'm sure I've missed a few of their bigger buys.

I would be happy to leave C Roche operation out of any equation I was formulating .  Bit like avoiding races in UK where a certain Irvinestown ex pat is involved .

no one mentions the devalueation of the irish punt in 1993??

As the origonal poster of this topic we will probably never know exactly how J.P McManus makes his money but i'm more interested in posters on views how he spends it on his NH operation. I believe that unless he regards it as a semi charity he can get better value for money. He think he may fund the Jonjo operation in Britain which is hardly a roaring success either.

6 out of  say 500 horses, is hugely impressive kavvie,if thats yre bag.

by the way some people are talking here he never won anything of note..he won lots.sheik mo never won a derby in his own colours..how many tries had he?..i know he has a lot of dross but thats his choice...im sure they are valuable in their own way!!?