CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER Jeffrey Epstein was part of a conversation about a potential €3 billion deal involving Allied Irish Bank (AIB) at the height of the Irish recession, according to emails released in the latest Epstein files documents drop.

Emails between Epstein and an investor named David Mitchell show that the pair arranged meetings and discussed an “AIB deal” in 2011 which they hoped to get Peter Mandelson, the now-disgraced British politician, to join.

The revelation has been described as “deeply concerning” by Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty. 

The email exchanges took place after Epstein was convicted by a Florida state court for soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. He was registered as a sex offender and served 13 months in custody for the charge. He was later found dead in jail in New York in August 2019, where he was facing a number of sex trafficking charges. 

There is no evidence that AIB was aware of or engaged in these discussions. The files indicate that the conversations between the men remained exploratory in nature. 

AIB was experiencing significant financial struggles in 2011. It had been the biggest bank in Ireland before the 2008 financial crash, but it had to be bailed out by the Irish government, which took a majority share in the bank. It had a 99.8% shareholding in AIB by the middle of 2011. 

In April 2011, AIB announced 2,000 layoffs within the next two years, after posting an annual after-tax loss of €10.4 billion for 2010. By July, the bank had reported a loss of €2.6 billion for the first six months of 2011.

In the same month AIB made a large purchase when it took over the deposit book of Anglo Irish Bank. Both Anglo and Irish Nationwide had been taken into public ownership during the banking crisis, and the deposit books of the two institutions – worth around €14 billion – were put up for auction as part of a winding-down process.

In September 2010, The Irish Times reported that the bank needed to raise a further €2-€3 billion to cover higher expected losses. The Financial Times reported the following month that the bank was seeking more shareholders.

In February 2011, Mitchell, an investor and finance professional, emailed Epstein to pitch an “Irish opportunity” he was working on.

He said he had been working with ‘Todd and Guggenheim’ on AIB in Dublin for the last three months. Mitchell appears to be referring to Todd Boehly, the current chairman of Premier League team Chelsea, who began working with financial services firm Guggenheim Partners in 2001.

Mitchell told Epstein that he had mentioned the deal to him previously, but it had since “gotten more serious”. He said it was set up by his partner who had UK partners “close with AIB”.

Mitchell said the deal would cost the businessmen between €1 billion and €3 billion, but described it as a “major opportunity”. He went on to say that he and Epstein would provide 50% of the equity, while Boehly would provide the other 50%.

He advised Epstein to use Peter, likely Peter Mandelson, to “spearhead” the deal as it was “his sweet spot”. The documents do not show Mandelson, who held a number of senior positions in Britain’s Labour-led government from the 1990s on, including Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, being included on any of the correspondence or taking any steps in relation to AIB. 

Mitchell instructed Epstein to call Boehly and tell him he was getting involved and also bring up his “desire to have Peter involved”.

He said after this call that he would have someone named Joel “brief Peter so that you can get his view”.

Mitchell then mentioned he would “further brief Peter on Silverstone”. The Times revealed this week that Epstein and Mandelson also worked together in a bid to buy British racetrack Silverstone.

‘The Irish situation’

On 2 August 2011, an email from a businessman to Jeffrey Epstein referenced a multi-billion dollar offer relating to AIB’s US property portfolio.

The businessman said he met with a family who were putting in a $1.5 billion bid.

“All the big [financial] houses are competitors (Blackstone, Paulson, Goldman) so they think their chances are not very high. They would like a strong partner for the bid, to increase it and to bid for the total US$10 billion,” he said.

The next time a proposed AIB deal appeared in the Epstein files was 7 September 2011, when Mitchell emailed Boehly to arrange a meeting with Mandelson.

At the time, AIB had been in the news as it had recently contacted the Minister for Finance to request paying a salary above the €500,000 cap to a new chief executive for the bank.

Mitchell asked Boehly to “get together with my friend Jeffrey to speak about bringing Peter into the Irish situation?”. Boehly agreed and Mitchell emailed Epstein asking to set up a get-together to “speak about my AIB deal and Peter”.

In email threads from mid-September with the subject titled ‘Peter Mandelson’, Mitchell arranged a meeting with Epstein’s personal assistant and Boehly’s personal assistant, suggesting meeting times to discuss the “AIB deal”.

Mitchell, Boehly, Epstein, and the personal assistants were added to the email thread at various points of the discussion. 

On 8 November 2011, Mandelson emailed Epstein to say he was travelling to Dublin and the two arranged a phone call.

No more is mentioned about the AIB deal after this correspondence, and there is no record of a deal between the named individuals and the bank going ahead.

At no point was anyone from AIB involved in the discussions and there is no public record of AIB having ever engaged with or been approached by the men. 

Peter Mandelson, Todd Boehly, Guggenheim Partners and David Mitchell have been contacted for comment. AIB did not want to comment on this story.