AIB/Irish Banks: robust capital permits stake selldowns
No need to fear an ill wind if your haystacks are tied down. Irish banking bosses will remember the local proverb with an economic storm on the way.
Loose bindings caught predecessors out during the Great Financial Crisis. A property collapse threatened to blow the Irish banking system out of the water. More than a decade has elapsed since then. Ireland now has one of the strictest regulatory regimes in Europe. Markets are correspondingly sanguine.
The government will make the most of this by selling a further 5 per cent of its holding in bank AIB back to the market. It sold down the entirety of a smaller stake in Bank of Ireland in September. That netted taxpayers a €2bn profit.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Tax Cognition
