Allied Irish Banks Share Discussion Threads

[hermana] 22/11/2009 12:50

RBS considering dumping £7Bn of bad loans into NAMA according to Times.

[lbo] 18/11/2009 20:31

AIB's total loan book in the Republic is €78bn, €57bn of which will not be transferred to Nama. Residential mortgages account for €27bn of this €57bn, and these mortgages remain relatively unaffected by delinquency, with only €500m – or about 2 per cent – impaired. The other €30bn of non-Nama loans has a slightly higher rate of impairments at €3.7bn, or 12 per cent



Yesterday's statement noted the level of arrears in Permanent TSB's Irish residential mortgage book continue to rise (up by 3% in September and October, compared to an 8% rise in August) but at a slower rate

[lbo] 18/11/2009 20:22

AIB underestimated bad loans by Euro 1bn

[hermana] 18/11/2009 15:27

LBO,not a semblance of empathy for AIB holders from head of remuneration committee, o'driscoll on radio. What planet does the smug git reside in? It is our pity and AIB's extreme good fortune that Ireland has the worst finance minister ever anywhere. He is the "Basil Fawlty" of the finance world complete with crumpled suit reeking of garlic and of course crisps and nuts. Heard a good story on him a bit back. He and members of IBEC were in Brussels for a meeting. After the meeting len and a senior IBEC figure were chatting. len asked IBEC guy how was IBEC head doing in his job? The IBEC guy had to explain to len that the person in question had left his job 6 months earlier. Very reassuring to have a minister in touch with current events..........................

[lbo] 18/11/2009 08:33

80% windfall tax will make Nama's task more difficult

[lbo] 18/11/2009 08:24

AIB raises writedowns to E5.3bn for year

[lbo] 17/11/2009 21:47

We bail them out, but AIB are still getting away with murder

[hybrasil] 17/11/2009 09:10

I find it very hard to believe that they in flagrant breach of govt wishes and general shareholder and public concern have appointed colm o'doherty to effectively the top job.
It serves to emphasise the disdain the bank treats everyone with.
They have shown a total disregard for what is required and what all stakeholders want, namely a clean sweep.
I would have thought in colloquial terms that moves reads "up yours lenihan"

[lbo] 16/11/2009 23:23

The prospect of negative equity and mortgage arrears stalk us, just as jobs are being lost, bills are coming in and taxes are rising.

The 'third wave' of this crisis, which began in the financial markets and quickly moved to the broader economy, is now striking the labour market, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief.

Despite some encouraging signs in recent months, the employment outlook for 2010 remains poor, as the economy is expected to contract again next year. While low-skilled employees have accounted for the majority of the job losses to date, the number of professionals looking for work or training has soared by 84pc.

Past experience suggests that unemployment will continue to rise for at least a year after GDP has resumed growing. Wage increases tend to lag even further behind. Moreover, taxes and interest rates are certain to rise as the recovery gets established, not just in Ireland but in all developed countries

[lbo] 15/11/2009 19:03

AIB recapitalised its British operations by just over stg£1 billion (€1.16 billion) just weeks after receiving a €3.5 billion cheque from the exchequer to bolster its balance sheet. Documents filed with the Companies Office in Belfast show that AIB's main British operating company, AIB Group (UK) plc, bolstered its share capital base by converting £950 million of its retained earnings into new shares in June, and a further £100 million in July.

[knickers2] 14/11/2009 06:25

I have been calling this merger of BOI and AIB into Allied Bank of Ireland
for over a year now.
I feel the moment draws near for this to be announced.
With the two banks on nigh on a billion shares each and after certain assets
sold, looking very close to each other at 2 euros, terms of one BOI for one AIB,
look spot on!!!

Quote INDO this morning...Lenihan says...
"Lenihan also said Allied Irish Banks, which has received €3.5bn of public money, will announce a new management team next week.
The bank has been searching for a chief executive officer since Eugene Sheehy said in April he will step down when a successor is found. The company is also looking for a finance chief.
Lenihan said suitable external candidates hadn't been found and the new executives would be drawn from inside the bank. A spokeswoman for Allied Irish Banks declined to comment."

There's loads of competition out there, with the POSTBANK network developing at
a rapid rate(I have an online account already)nationwide, the BOSI Halifax network repositioned through ESB, the ILPM network with Nationwide and EBS, NIB on it's own, Ulster Bank merged with First Active, there is ample competition,
and Irish ownership...in fact there are'nt enough customers to go 'round!!!
Even tesco and the other supermarkets are planning their entry into retail banking,
and senior corporate banking available from many providers in the IFSC such as
BOM,CIBC and a host of others including newly acquired lcences.

It's a compelling argument!!!

It makes sense!!!

[lochgarman] 12/11/2009 10:54

BZWBK Q3 earnings well ahead of consensus

• BZWBK, the Polish bank in which AIB has a 70.4% interest, reported Q3 2009 results
with net income increasing 2% (q-o-q) to Pln264m, which was 44% ahead of
Bloomberg consensus estimates (Pln183m).
• Net interest income delivered a strong performance, rising 16% (q-o-q) to Pln 413m,
with liability pressures easing. BZWBK, which holds the second position in the Polish
mutual fund market (11.6%), is seeing some rebound in this area (following a 20%
contraction), as risk appetite begins to increase. Loans declined 2% (corporate -4%,
retail -4%), while deposits reduced by 1% in Q3, leaving the loan to deposit ratio at
85%. The loan impairment charge continued its downward trajectory, and fell 20% (qo-
q) to Pln97m (this was below management guidance of between Pln123 to 160m).
NPL increased to 5.4% (Q3: 4.5%) principally due to a deterioration in land bank
exposures, while the coverage ratio remained relatively stable at 40%. It's Basel II
solvency ratio stood at 12.1% with a Tier 1 ratio of 11.8%.
• Overall, this was a very strong Q3 result by BZWBK, with consensus estimates likely to
adjust upwards after its conference call later this afternoon. A disposal at current levels
would be worth approx. €1.5bn to AIB in capital terms. AIB is due to release an IMS in
the coming days
Ciara

[crosswire] 12/11/2009 06:25

Ireland's EU54 Billion Gamble on Banks, Property Nears Approval


By Dara Doyle and Ian Guider

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest financial gamble in modern Irish history is about to exit the realms of theory and enter the real world.

Lawmakers will today pass a bill creating a so-called bad bank that will pay the country's biggest banks 54 billion euros ($81 billion), or about a third of gross domestic product, for property loans to free up lending. The agency plans to start buying loans by the end of the year, according to a plan published last month.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is seeking to end a crisis that's wiped 70 percent from the country's benchmark stock index, sent bond spreads soaring to the highest in at least a decade and destroyed Ireland's status as Europe's most dynamic economy. Real-estate prices have on average dropped 50 percent since peaking in 2007, and bad debts at lenders led by Bank of Ireland Plc and Allied Irish Banks Plc are surging.

"This is our biggest financial experiment by far," said Eoin Fahy, an economist at KBC Asset Management in Dublin, which manages the equivalent of 8.4 billion euros. "It's another step in solving the Irish crisis, and spreads versus Germany should tighten over the next three or four years."

While the difference in yield, or spread, between 10-year Irish debt and the German equivalent has dropped to 137 basis points from 284 basis points in March, that compares with an average of 28 basis points over the last 10 years.

Lawmakers are due to vote on the National Asset Management Agency legislation by 3:30 p.m. in Dublin, according to the parliament schedule. The government hopes to get final approval from the European Commission later this month.

Bank Shares

Lenihan has already helped to ease the worst of the crisis. The ISEF index of Irish financial shares has almost doubled in value since he first outlined the bad-bank plan in April. He's also injected 3.5 billion euros into both Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish and has nationalized Anglo Irish Bank Corp.

Ireland came "close to the wire" earlier this year, Lenihan said on Nov. 5. As a domestic real-estate slump compounded the impact of the global financial crisis, Ireland's economy shrank in 2008 for the first time in a quarter century. The recession deepened this year, with the government forecasting a contraction of almost 8 percent, which would be twice the euro-area average.

For the banks, NAMA "ensures their survival," said Simon Maughan, an analyst at MF Global Securities Ltd. in London. "Without it and in the absence of any other option, there is no survival."

Property Values

Opponents including Fine Gael, the largest opposition political party, say banks will hoard the cash rather than lend as they brace themselves for a second wave of bad losses in mortgage and personal loans, and try to rebuild their capital.

While the agency forecasts a 5.5 billion-euro profit over its lifespan, banking consultant Peter Mathews says it will struggle to recover loans, saddling taxpayers with assets worth far less than the government pays. In one example, a site on Dublin's Poolbeg Peninsula close to the city's port, which sold for 413 million euros in 2007, is now worth 85 percent less, the government estimates.

"NAMA is a disaster," said Mathews, who expects the agency to lose about 12 billion euros. "It's like pointing a car downhill facing a cliff and hoping that by some magical gravitational pull, the road will move upwards."

Guarantee

The government last year guaranteed banks' deposits and most of their debts as the financial system neared collapse, a move that became the template for plans across Europe. Lenihan has said he will inject further cash into the banks if needed after NAMA, which would see the state increase its current 25 percent stakes.

"Ireland made a mistake earlier when they guaranteed all the liabilities of the banks," former Bank of England policy maker Willem Buiter said on Bloomberg Radio on Nov. 10. "Creditors can no longer be asked to take a haircut or to be transformed into equity holders. The only place to dump the toxic assets is on the taxpayer."

NAMA is buying property loans with book value of 77 billion euros from three banks and two building societies at an average discount of 30 percent. Lenihan estimates that the loans are currently worth about 47 billion euros. By overpaying by 7 billion euros, the government avoids bankrupting the banks and adds cash into the system to help revive lending.

The move also adds to public debt at a time when the deficit is already set to reach at least 20 billion euros this year.

"For investors outside Ireland, it removes the fear that one bank could go wallop quickly and leave a 10 billion or 15 billion-euro hole in the public finances," said Rossa White, chief economist at Dublin-based securities firm Davy. "Liquidity should no longer be a problem."

[lbo] 10/11/2009 10:26

Work stops on 500-unit site as 42pc cuts fail to shift homes

[lbo] 10/11/2009 10:19

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan was told yesterday that he was "crazy" to tell people that the so-called bad bank NAMA will spend €2.5bn on advisers over the next 10 years

[crosswire] 08/11/2009 18:40

Big banks fear the lash of the EU

08 November 2009

By David Clerkin, Markets Correspondent

If you're making money, you're taking risks. Shareholders in Irish banks witnessed new levels of volatility last week as share prices bounced around and the great unknowns that will dictate the future of each institution continued to pile up.

Investors who ended the week ahead of where they had started it may feel that they paid for their gains in nerves that are even more frayed and heart rates that are even more accelerated.

But the scare factors are gaining just as quickly as the share prices of Bank of Ireland, AIB and Irish Life and Permanent (ILP).

Although the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has been with us, in outline form, for seven months now, the continuing inability of banks to put investors' minds at rest continues to fuel the uncertainty that, on occasions, trips the panic switch.

A t one point last week, stock market watchers were treated to the unusual spectacle of ILP, which will not take part in the Nama exercise as it is primarily a life assurance and mortgage specialist, eclipsing the once mighty AIB, now disdained for being top-heavy in its exposure to property developers.

A sharp sell-off of banking stocks saw the big two, AIB and Bank of Ireland, suffer more than their lowerprofile rival, as what was once dismissed as a peripheral concern - the attitude of the European Commission to all these bank bailouts - assumed greater relevance.

The influence of EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes has begun to loom large for Irish bank shareholders, as her office struck close to home.

Just a week after Dutch bank ING felt the wrath of an EU crackdown on state supports for banks, it was the turn of Britain's biggest bailout beneficiaries - Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group - to set out their future plans to appease the commission and assuage concerns over the effect of their government's interventions on competition.

Both banks will hold their noses while they swallow their medicine. RBS, the owner of Ulster Bank, entered uncharted territory as it unveiled plans to gobble up yet more British government money - seeing the British government's effective ownership of the bank go from 70 per cent to almost 85 per cent.

Meanwhile, at Lloyds, the owner of Bank of Scotland and Halifax in Ireland, announced plans to seek money from private sector investors under a rights issue that will still need the backing of the government, owner of 43 per cent of the bank, to get off the ground.

There was no free lunch. RBS was ordered to start chopping off parts of its branch networks throughout Britain and package some of its divisions, including an insurance arm and investment banking business, into chunks that would appeal to potential buyers or even become candidates for spin-off as separate companies with a stock market listing down the line.

The bank also faces undertakings to take its foot off the pedal in competing in overseas markets and agreed that it would keep its name well away from the top of industry league tables for lending volumes. The commission, in effect, had ordered RBS to act like a conventional commercial operation - but not to try too hard in the process.

From an Irish perspective, Ulster Bank employees may have been relieved that the bank was not among those fingered for disposal, but its self-inflicted wounds are unlikely to have left it among the most popular of the businesses to have escaped the cull.

Lloyds, however, faced equally challenging demands to offload businesses and create a potential spin-off high street bank in Britain for the benefit of a future rival.

While its Irish operations did not appear on the commission's hit list, the fact that the conditions imposed from Brussels were more far-reaching than had been expected sent shivers through the Irish banking sector.

Local thoughts have begun to turn to the cases of Bank of Ireland, AIB and the nationalised Anglo Irish Bank. All three are required to submit far-reaching business plans to the commission, in return for its approval of various government support packages that have been implemented in each case.

Bank of Ireland, which last week unveiled underlying losses of almost €1 billion for the six months to September, was first out of the blocks in submitting its restructuring plan for approval. According to chief executive Richie Boucher, however, it remains too early to say with any certainty what line the commission will take.

Last week's interventions in Britain, however, underlined suspicions that Kroes's office will not be simply going through the motions with a rubber-stamping exercise.

Boucher highlighted measures that the bank had seemingly decided would be better made voluntarily rather than imposed from Brussels. These included a staged withdrawal from a number of overseas lending businesses - gradually running down loan books currently worth almost €40 billion - but investors may worry that the extent of the Irish government's generosity may warrant a higher price.

AIB's situation, meanwhile, will become clearer in the coming weeks when its restructuring plan falls due - although the bank's ability to set a course for the future has undoubtedly been hampered by the lengthy uncertainty, soon to be resolved, over the identity of its new chief executive.

As both AIB and Bank of Ireland will benefit from the government's decision to pay more for their stressed property loans than their current market value through the Nama exercise, the commission will cast an unsympathetic eye over their business plans.

It will also look to ensure that the prospect of the state taking sizeable equity stakes in each institution, in return for the capital that will be needed to offset ongoing loan losses, does not become a dominant feature of their future commercial operations.

Last week's share price volatility recognised that the uncertainty over the banks' futures, which Nama hopes to address, will be far from the last scene in the Irish banking horror show.

Just as previous rays of hope - those triggered by the government guarantee, the recapitalisation, the establishment of Nama - eventually gave way to a lingering gloom, the extent of the challenges that continue to plague the sector offers little comfort for the optimists that remain.

[lbo] 08/11/2009 18:06

Worst-case scenario looms



If I were a betting man, I'd say one of the big banks will be fully nationalised early next year. This would mean that, rather than the guarantee -which, on its own, was intended to be used to deal with the creditors in an orderly fashion and sell one of the big banks for a song to an international bank - we will get the triple lock. The triple lock is the guarantee, Nama and nationalisation. This is probably the worse combination of all.

[crosswire] 06/11/2009 15:03

The Irish Times - Friday, November 6, 2009Banks and Aer Lingus post gains
Iseq: 2,991.16 (+25.87) at 12.25pm: Allied Irish Banks rose 11 per cent at one point in Dublin trading this morning and was followed up by Bank of Ireland and Irish Life and Permanent in the wake of yesterday's rally by financials.

AIB climbed as much as 19 cents to €1.95 and was up some 10 per cent at €1.93 in early afternoon trading. Bank of Ireland rose 4.45 per cent to €1.99, while ILP was up over 2 per cent to €4.89.


The move in AIB came after the lender said it sold a five-year bond not covered by the Government guarantee, and the final stages of Ireland's National Asset Management Agency legislation were passed in the Dáil last night.

Banking stocks had rallied in late Dublin trading yesterday, with both BoI and AIB closing up and pushing the Iseq to outperform the European markets.

[crosswire] 06/11/2009 09:11

Yanks will take share price past $6.00 this pm. IMO