Tony O’Reilly (b.1936,) fully Sir Anthony John Francis O’Reilly, is an Irish rugby union player and business executive. Once Ireland’s richest man, the chairman of the Heinz Corporation, and the owner of over 200 newspapers, he declared bankruptcy.
Born in Dublin, O’Reilly was educated at Belvedere College, University College, Dublin, and Bradford University. He played 29 Test (international) matches for Ireland and set British Lions (now the British and Irish Lions) records for tries scored while on tour in South Africa (1955) and New Zealand (1959.)
After a productive business career as a management consultant, O’Reilly became chief executive (1979–98) and chairman (1987–2000) of the Heinz International Corporation.
One of Ireland’s wealthiest people, he focused on publishing through his chairmanship of Independent News and Media (INM,) the parent company of many newspapers in Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. He was also chairman of Waterford Wedgwood, a manufacturer of high-quality china, porcelain, and glass. O’Reilly’s investments INM and Waterford Wedgwood failed, and O’Reilly was declared bankrupt by a court in the Bahamas.
O’Reilly’s biographies are Ivan Fallon’s The Player: The Life of Tony O’Reilly (1992) and Matt Cooper’s The Maximalist: The Rise and Fall of Tony O’Reilly (2015.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Tony O’Reilly
One of the vices of the virtue of decentralization is that people don’t share ideas.
—Tony O’Reilly
Topics: Business
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