John Teeling

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, Zimbawbwe, 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 financing, 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]