Tag: Nama

Pressure is mounting on AIB boss Colm Doherty in the wake of last year’s €2.65bn pre-tax loss, with most of the Sunday newspapers taking a cut at the performance of the bank and its dismal prospects.

The Sunday Independent’s business section quotes the findings of an international research firm, Credit Sights, who believe next year’s losses could top €3bn and senior analyst Simon Adamson’s view that AIB’s loan book is “the worst in Europe”.

“From my experience, you have to go back to the Nordic banking crisis of the 1990s to see comparable levels of impaired loans in a big bank as you see in AIB today,” he says.

Anglo Irish Bank wants to draw a line under its past when its annual results are published next month, according to a front page article in The Sunday Times. You can readily see why. The nationalised bank is the functioning definition of a basket case. Anglo is about to announce the largest loss in Irish corporate history when it writes off €11.2 billion on loans that it will transfer to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama).

During the debate over the banking crisis, the Government resolutely refused to go down the road of nationalising any of the major financial institutions but when the financial markets open tomorrow (Monday), the State will be the biggest shareholder in the Bank of Ireland.

Bank of Ireland is finalising plans to launch a €1bn-plus rights issue within six to eight weeks – the first time an Irish bank has tried to raise funding in global capital markets since the onset of the credit crunch, The Sunday Times says.

The transfer of the bank’s first batch of property loans to Nama and European Commission approval of its business plan will determine the timing of the rights issue.