Sean Patrick Ewing (age 51) is an Irish entrepreneur involved in the fund management and yachting industries. He established FundsDirect in 1999 and co-founded Absolute Capital Management in 2004. In 2009 he acquired a majority stake in Pinmar, the world's largest yacht painting company, from the

Ferretti Group Ferretti S.p.A. (trading as Ferretti Group) is a Multinational corporation, multinational shipbuilding company headquartered in Forlì which specialises in the design, construction and sale of luxury motor yachts. Its products are sold under the ...

. His wealth has been estimated at

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

95m and he has featured on the ''

Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray backgrou ...

's'' Irish Rich List since 2010.

Early life and career

Ewing, a native of

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

, was born in

Sligo Sligo ( ; , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20,608 in 2022, it is the county's largest urban centre (constituting 2 ...

in 1965 and attended

Summerhill College Summerhill College (aka The College of the Immaculate Conception) is a Roman Catholic voluntary secondary school for boys located in the town of Sligo in north-west Ireland. History The school was founded in 1857 by then-bishop of Elphin, Laur ...

. On leaving school, Ewing worked for his uncle's small engineering business in Letterkenny while studying accountancy at the

University of Ulster Ulster University (; Ulster Scots: or ), legally the University of Ulster, is a multi-campus public research university located in Northern Ireland. It is often referred to informally and unofficially as Ulster, or by the abbreviation UU. It i ...

. He was invited to run the investment arm of an Irish building society, developing its tax planning, financial planning and portfolio management services. This led to an opportunity to partner with Hichens, Harrison & Co, the oldest firm of stockbrokers in the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

, to acquire IPS Capital Management, the Bristol-based fund management business.

Fund Management

IPS Capital Management was reversed into Farlake, a property company listed on London Stock Exchange's AIM market. Following the reversal, Farlake was repositioned as an asset management company which grew to $1bn assets under management before being sold to Talisman Group in 2000. Ewing carved out from that sale the fund trading business which he had launched in 1999, called FundsDirect, the UK's first online fund supermarket. The platform allowed banks to trade around 36,000 funds across 13 European countries. In 2003 FundsDirect was sold to

Egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

and The Prudential for

32m. In 2004, Ewing co-founded Absolute Capital Management and listed 30% of the company on

AIM AIM or Aim may refer to: Computing * AIM alliance, an Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance * AIM (software), AOL Instant Messenger * Fortyfive, a Japanese software development company previously known as AIM Military * Abrams Integrated Management, an ...

in 2005. The company won several accolades including European Hedge Fund of the Year in 2006. Ewing retired from Absolute Capital in July 2007 to spend more time with his wife and two young daughters. In September 2007 the company's co-founder Florian Homm resigned and the share price collapsed. In 2016 the US Department of Justice entered a Settlement with Ewing as part of its investigation into Florian Homm, the Chief Investment Officer of Absolute Capital. The settlement acknowledged that Ewing had not undertaken any criminal wrongdoing nor had any knowledge of the alleged

stock manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation occurs when someone intentionally alters the supply or demand of a security to influence its price. This can involve spreading misleading information, executing misleading trades, or manipulating ...

scheme that Homm had masterminded and for which Homm was indicted and charged by the US authorities. In July 2017, all charges against Ewing relating to the Homm case were dismissed with prejudice.

Yachting

In 2009, Ewing entered the luxury yacht industry by acquiring the

's 60% stake in Pinmar, the world's largest yacht painting company, and investing in YCO, a yacht chartering company. In September 2012 Ewing launched an online platform for yacht charters called CharterBid.com. Ewing served as Chairman of Pinmar until its merger in September 2015 with Rolling Stock to form a new company, Global Yachting Group, (GYG).

Sport

Ewing was an avid golfer in his youth, participating in the Irish Amateur and British Amateur. He also played rugby for his County and captained the County team in Gaelic football. Ewing remains a strong amateur golfer, winning the Abu Dhabi Yas Links Senior Open in 2015 and the inaugural United Arab Emirates Golf Amateur Tour in the low handicap category in 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ewing, Sean Patrick Living people Irish businesspeople People educated at Summerhill College Alumni of Ulster University Year of birth missing (living people)