John James Teeling was born on January 1946 and is an Irish academic and businessperson, notable for the wide range of businesses he has developed or overhauled over several decades.
25 Facts About John Teeling
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John Teeling is notable for having brought ten companies to public listing on the London Stock Exchange, the most of any Irish person.
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John Teeling authored a number of educational texts, for primary school and college.
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John James Teeling was born in January 1946, the eldest of the four children of James "Jimmy" B Teeling and Emma "Emily" Teeling of Hollybrook Road, Clontarf, an affluent northern suburb of Dublin, where he grew up.
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John Teeling's father was a Royal Liver Assurance agent, and Teeling has said that his family were neither rich nor poor, but were the first on their street to buy a television and a car.
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John Teeling's father ran a small legal money-lending business, and John Teeling helped with this from the age of 12.
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John Teeling accepted a lecturing post at UCD in 1969, at 19 pounds a week.
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John Teeling taught at the university, in areas including Commerce and Business Administration, until 1988, when the demands of his business interests intervened.
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For most of the period John Teeling worked part-time at UCD but he did take a break from lecturing for two years to work on Seafield Gentex.
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In 1983 John 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.
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John Teeling pursued opportunities in Ireland, Bolivia, Iran, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and other countries.
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John Teeling operates his businesses from a rented office building originally held by David Boyd Barrett, on the coast in Clontarf, near his home; it has been described as "spartan" and he describes his approach as "I don't do overheads".
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John 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.
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John Teeling explored the possibilities of whiskey distilling in the early 1970s while studying for a doctorate at Harvard, and wrote two related papers in 1971.
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In 1987, John Teeling founded the Cooley Distillery, on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, taking over a disused State spirit factory, operated by Ceimici Teoranta.
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John Teeling took over Locke's Distillery in Kilbeggan, disused since the 1950s, and after a period operating simply as a maturing location, it resumed full-scale production, as Kilbeggan Distillery, from 2007.
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John Teeling commented that there were in all three critical moments in the business's history when urgent financing was needed.
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John 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.
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John 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.
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John Teeling is a high-profile figure in Irish business, regularly quoted in the media.
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John Teeling has written or co-authored a number of academic texts, one for primary school, the remainder for tertiary studies:.
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John Teeling married Deirdre John Teeling in 1971; they have three children and have lived throughout in the same house on Seafield Road in Clontarf.
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John Teeling bought the neighbouring house to prevent any development there.
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Deirdre John Teeling is an educationalist, who worked for many years as a guidance counsellor in second-level Mercy College in nearby Coolock.
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John Teeling continued to play rugby union football into his 70s; he follows cricket.