Whois it?
Cathriona Carey from Gowran County Kilkenny is a fraudster she comes from a famous sporting family .She has a brother called DJ Carey one of the greatest Hurlers of all times .Sorry I dont know who the Low Life thieving Bastard is .
Newman and Carey dream crashed to earth
Sarah Newman and DJ Carey had it all at one stage, including a chalet in Zermatt, Switzerland
Sarah Newman and DJ Carey had it all at one stage, including a chalet in Zermatt, Switzerland
Emily Hourican
April 22 2012 04:47 AM
IN the heady days of the Celtic Tiger, the K Club was a microcosm of all that was ambitious and aspirational about this country.
Choppers came and went -- the club has space for 300 helicopters at any one time -- both golf courses were regularly booked out, and the various bars and restaurants were busy and buzzy. Houses and apartments -- all architecturally typical of the Celtic Tiger era: large, opulent, fashionable -- were no sooner built than they were sold, for up to €2m each, even though most overlook the Smurfit course, which is exposed and windswept, without the gentle tree coverage of the Palmer course. Financial moving and shaking were as much a part of the action as golf, and deals were endlessly done, over drinks, afternoon tea, and 18 holes. And for a time, Sarah Newman was queen of the K Club. Lady Captain for 2010, she and her partner, legendary Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey, owned two of the luxurious houses. She had a huge profile thanks to Dragons' Den, and serious money, through the sale of her company, Needahotel.com to Cendant Corporation in 2006 for between €30m and €50m.
These days, the choppers are largely gone, the fees less defensible in the new economic climate.
And for Sarah Newman, there is a new reality too. Although she had actual cash, unlike most of the boomtime millionaires who were hopped up on credit, these days she has her own financial woes, and now her relationship has also foundered. The couple announced to their circle of friends -- by text message apparently -- just over a week ago, that the relationship was over. She is currently staying in England with her mother, while Carey is apparently living at one of the K Club houses.
Newman is not a quitter, in life or in love. "Never give up selling. Keep going back. Rejection can be a good thing, it can help you improve your product," was the roundly upbeat advice she delivered to a roomful of enthusiastic, ambitious young people, as part of the DIT Be Inspired lecture series, back in 2009. "You can find a way and you can always find solutions. Our ancestors didn't sit there and say, bugger this, it's far too hard work."
At the time, intimations of the financial trouble to come were vague, known only to her closest friends. To all public intent, Newman was then the phenomenally successful dotcom millionaire, who built up Needahotel.com as a single mother by dint of hard work and tireless determination, then sold it for serious money. She was a poster girl of the Celtic Tiger, proof that big dreams and hard graft were all anyone needed to succeed. She was also then known as the sexy, blonde Dragon on Dragons' Den, the one who asked the toughest questions and almost never invested.
"Never give up," is therefore advice she was well qualified to give. It's advice that she seems to have applied to her relationship with DJ Carey as much as her business life. Until last week, when the couple finally called it quits, they had battled hard at making things work through several crushingly stressful years.
By the time judgments were made against them both in the Commercial Court last year -- for more than €9m each in favour of AIB Mortgage Bank -- the couple must have been frantically paddling for quite some time, trying desperately to keep their finances stable, even as his cleaning product company went into liquidation, and their property empire plummeted in value along with the rest of the country. The AIB debts related to cross-guarantees each gave in respect of the other's liabilities, specifically mortgage loans of €7.85m and €1.5m, dating back to 2007, which allowed them to refinance existing debt and release equity on properties jointly owned.
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The cross-guarantees were slightly unusual transactions, but then, theirs was a deeply entwined relationship, in which each was involved with the other's businesses and finances. Rather than two lives running separate and parallel, they chose to confront the world as a unit. And even though they were an initially unlikely couple -- she a blonde, shiny Essex-girl-made-good, gregarious and a relentless net-worker, he a sporting legend and hero to men throughout the country, but personally shy and modest -- together, they were a convincing double act.
The relationship began around seven years ago after Carey split from his wife -- the sad end to that marriage came following an unpleasant few weeks before the 2003 All-Ireland Final, when rumours had reached critical mass and he lived in daily expectation of finding his private life splashed across the tabloid papers -- and the pair connected in a love of golf, an approachable, down-to-earth attitude and in putting family first. He had two sons, she a son and a daughter from her marriage to Patrick O'Donohoe, from whom she separated in 2000, and for a while they were like the Brady Bunch; a happy, modern, blended family.
Indeed, when the couple flew to Mauritius in January for a last-ditch luxurious, five-star holiday, a final stab at saving the relationship, they took some of their children and Newman's mother with them, sparing no expense in order to reinforce the closeness between all those concerned. That they returned defeated, unable to make a go of things any longer, suggests that finally, even Newman had to admit that simply trying was no longer enough. "She is devastated, to put it mildly. Really heartbroken," one friend of the couple has said. "Things have been tough for at least two years between them," said another, "and she has tried everything to make it work. She did not want this to happen."
"He's my absolute soundboard," Newman herself said of Carey, in a 2007 interview. "He's a very level-headed, logical, stable, feet-on-the-ground type of guy and he would have added a completely different dimension to the way I approach business." It's the kind of thing often heard from women who are financially more successful than their partners, a kind of attempt at redressing the economic balance by identifying him as crucial to that success. However, Newman quite clearly meant it, finding in the quietly-spoken Kilkenny man an excellent foil for her own more bubbly personality. She later added, "Having a partner who doesn't hold you back is very important." In fact, far from holding her back, the two combined were a bone fide power couple, more mesmerising together than either of them was individually. While Newman has been described as "like Marmite -- you either love her or hate her" -- Carey is generally considered worthy of the quiet adoration he inspires in most men.
During the good years, both were known to be extremely generous, personally and to charities, and willing to take time and trouble with people. They were regulars at balls, parties and sporting events. Her spectacular success with Needahotel.com made her a magnet for anyone looking for investment, and she was frequently beset by people looking to give her financial advice or persuade her to invest in schemes. "She was massively generous, and they were very much part of a social, gregarious scene," said one who knew them in those days.
As well as the K Club properties, the couple bought a house at Mount Juliet, and a large beautifully renovated Georgian redbrick on Alma Road in Monkstown, where they mostly lived, with Newman's children. And then there was Chalet Grace, in a chic ski resort in Zermatt, Switzerland. Named for Newman's daughter, Chalet Grace was a true Celtic Tiger folly, with double-height floor-to-ceiling windows on all three levels, five double bedrooms, a dining room seating 14, a home cinema, a games room with pool table, and a 'Wellness' centre including a sauna, shower room, massage room, Pilates/yoga space, outdoor hot tub and shower. The chalet was finished in 2010, and on the market barely a year later, for €12.1m. It finally sold last year, which undoubtedly eased the financial strain considerably. However, that wasn't enough to turn back time on the stress of recent years.
Although she was highly visible socially, for such an apparently canny businesswoman, Newman has been strangely quiet professionally since the sale of Needahotel. As a Dragon, she famously invested almost nothing -- she was beguiled at one point by the notion of hand-crafted hurleys, but the venture ultimately came to little. Since then, she has gone into business with healer Michael O'Doherty, who describes her involvement as "of immense value and ... very much appreciated." O'Doherty specialises in something called Plexus Bio-Energy, a kind of healing by energy-release, and most famously apparently cured Michael Flatley of a mysterious virus that had laid him low for three years. Newman decided to invest in his proposition, because she apparently believed it would help get people through the recession with their health intact. Speaking at the time, she cited the good effect O'Doherty had had on Carey: "DJ has found that he is a lot more positive now, he feels stronger and he has far more energy than before. If you're under a huge amount of pressure it is like someone switches off a light and for DJ it was like someone unplugged his power support. But ever since he visited Michael, it's like a cloud has been lifted," she said.
Thanks to Sarah's involvement, Michal O'Doherty has opened a clinic in London. It is perfectly obvious that O'Doherty's healing claims caught Newman's eye because both she and Carey were, at the time, under almost impossible strain. That was shortly before the Commercial Court judgment. At the time, DJ Carey Enterprises, a cleaning products business built up over 18 years, of which Newman was a director, was in serious trouble, going into voluntary liquidation with debts of €1.7m. It was later bought out by Western Hygiene, where Carey now works as area sales manager. At the time, he told friends: "It's embarrassing, it's shameful, it's hurtful." However, he has since thrown himself into his new role and has been instrumental in the expansion of the business.
Before the liquidation of DJ Carey Enterprises came the discovery of large, unaccounted-for financial holes in the operation, which resulted in the gardai being called in. An investigation into some €200,000 is still on-going, though no arrests or charges have been brought. DJ ran the company with his sister Catriona, a former hockey player who earned 72 caps for Ireland, was at one time a director of the company, along with her brother. Catriona, described by a former schoolmate as "a glamorous sports star and businesswoman. She drives a BMW and she's part of a clique of good-looking Kilkenny girls", stood down in March 2009 and then started up another cleaning company in Kilkenny, Carey Cleaning Supplies, whose directors were listed as Catriona and Liz, another sister, as well as their mother, Maura.
At almost the same time, Newman was involved in a dispute with her ex-husband, Patrick O'Donohoe, over property, including the houses in Monkstown and the K Club. Although the couple have been separated since 2000, O'Donohoe was a co-director of Needahotel.com, and a year after the company was sold, the High Court ordered Newman to pay over €2.1m to her ex-husband. Some years later, with an amount rumoured to be more than €1m still outstanding, O'Donohoe registered charges over the house on Alma Road and the K Club properties. Sarah Newman says that all financial issues between the pair have now been resolved.
The question now is, where to next for Sarah Newman? Is she indeed an entrepreneur of genius, capable of picking herself up from failure in order to try, try again and try harder? Or a one-hit wonder who got lucky at a time when luck was in good supply?
Newman was just 16 when she left school. She was 25 when she married Patrick, moved to Ireland and set up Needahotel.com, with no money, nothing but conviction and energy. "I sat there on my first day and said 'S***, what have I done?' I had no money, but ... I knew that if I knocked on the door of every travel agent in Ireland, they would book with me," she said in an interview once. And knock she did, repeatedly, north and south, until she got the business. She also befriended one of the directors of Ryanair, and got herself a desk in their Phoenix Park call centre.
"I used to canvas every single one of the call centre staff daily, myself, and ask them, 'please just ask everybody who books a flight with you, do they need a hotel.'" Although her marriage had broken up, and Newman was busy with two young children, she worked tirelessly. Sales of "zero" in the first month, rose to €100m in 10 years, at which point Newman did the deal with Cendant. Showing typical generosity, Newman gave each of her then 75 employees even those just newly joined, a cheque for several thousand euros, all tax-free.
So, can she do it all again? The break-up of her relationship with Carey is undoubtedly a hard blow -- her devotion to him has never been in any doubt -- but ultimately, Sarah Newman is, in the words of one acquaintance who knows her through various charity events, "a go-getter, she's not a quitter. Other people might crawl into a hole after this and let go. She won't. She'll be back." After all, she is still only 43. Plenty of time for a second act.
