John James Teeling (born January 1946) is an Irish academic and businessperson, notable for the wide range of businesses he has developed or overhauled over several decades.
[6] After graduation from UCD, he secured further scholarship funding, from the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick,[14] to attend the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania,[6] where he took an MBA.
[16] In the early stage of his work as a lecturer in finance and business at UCD, in 1969, Teeling was asked to provide some consultancy for Northgate Exploration, owners of the Tynagh Mine in County Galway, then the largest in Ireland[17] and then David Boyd Barrett asked him to take a consultant role with the new Tara Mines in County Meath, working from offices in Clontarf.
[7] In addition to geological and other physical surveys, Teeling analysed placenames in Ireland to locate traditional areas where metals had been sourced historically.
The company's licences were eventually sold to Conroy and Teeling described the venture as so profitable that it was hard to repeat, saying "I should have quit after Minquest but I now wanted to set up and manage..."[19] He later set up African Gold, and when he sold that, managed a spin-off, West African Gold, and Botswana Diamonds, which in turn established a diamond-prospecting joint venture with Alrosa.
[23] 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.
[25] Shortly after the previous monopoly whiskey manufacturer Irish Distillers was bought out by Pernod Ricard in 1988, it offered to buy Cooley for 24.5 million pounds, with an openly stated plan to close the business and raze the distillery.
The offer, which would have provided a profitable payback to Cooley's investors, was blocked by Irish competition authorities, and subsequent financial challenges required Teeling to urgently secure stock advance sales and other financings, including further substantial personal investment.
[27] 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.
[28] The business trades as Great Northern Distillery and primarily sells to own brands or private labels and others needing a supply of bulk whiskey; as of 2017, it was producing over 6 million litres annually.
[12] His brother Jim (James), who died in 2014,[32] taught Business Studies in the secondary school they had attended, St Joseph's, Fairview, to which John Teeling has contributed with scholarships and funding for after-school classes.