Academia

Teeling accepted a lecturing post at UCD in 1969,^[13] at 19 pounds a week.^[7] He taught at the university, in areas including Commerce and Business Administration, until 1988, when the demands of his business interests intervened.^[6] During this period he also authored or co-authored a number of educational works.^[16]

Minerals and other investments

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.^[8]

Teeling and various partners including Donal Kinsella also invested in a range of non-mining businesses. His policy was to buy in on value investing principles – he summarised his approach as attacking "moribund public companies with under-used assets" – rationalising or selling main business elements, and selling off, for example, unneeded properties. By 1986 the companies he had bought into and re-structured included large textile manufacturers Seafield Gentex and Glen Abbey^[18] (in total Teeling worked with seven textile companies^[7]), Irish Wire Products, Irish Oil and Cake Mills, Irish Pharmaceuticals, and Dublin Gas.^[18][19] In the case of Dublin Gas, Teeling and Donal Kinsella bought-in, in the hope that gas might be discovered in recoverable quantities off the Dublin coast, and also with the idea of drawing fibre optic cables through the gas pipe network; Teeling exited soon after by selling his shares to Irish Life at a profit.^[20] For most of the period Teeling worked part-time at UCD but he did take a break from lecturing for two years to work on Seafield Gentex.^[19][18] Although firmly declining investment in property at a personal level,^[19] owning only his home and one neighbouring house, Teeling was chairman of a property company, Countyglen, for several years.^[21]

In 1983 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. 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.^[22] Other projects included Pan Andean Resources, Persian Gold, Clontarf Energy, Petrel Resources,^[15][12] and Connemara Mining (later Arkle Resources).^[6][13] He pursued opportunities in Ireland, Bolivia, Iran, Zimbabwe, Botswana,^[7] and other countries.

He operates his businesses from a rented office building originally held by David Boyd Barrett, on the coast in Clontarf, near his home;^[7] it has been described as "spartan" and he describes his approach as "I don't do overheads".^[6] He disclaims deep understanding of IT but has described biotechnology and DNA, an area in which his daughter, academic Emma Teeling, works, as "the Internet of the future".^[19] While mostly overseeing his ventures as chairman or executive chairman, and delegating routine management, Teeling has sometimes worked as managing director. As of July 2020, he has assumed the position of acting CEO at Arkle Resources plc., following the abrupt departure of the previous CEO.^[23]

Distilling

Public profile

Teeling is a high-profile figure in Irish business, regularly quoted in the media. He also performs talks and speeches at business group meetings and other events.^[8]