Sale of Irish Life confirmed

The statement from the Minister for Finance is here.

18 replies on “Sale of Irish Life confirmed”

The curse of Anglo. Plus they didn’t understand banking. Or European power.
Very high non deposit funding when the tide went out.

There goes the green jersey. Whatever about the price, this is bad strategic move. We have just relieved ourselves of 37BN of the tax relieved savings of the better off Irish. Price 1.3BN less the continued tax expenditures into the future.

Is there a cost-benefit analysis?
Or is it simply the “right call”?

Embedded value was EUR 1.5 bn at end of 2003 . No value created since – they would have lost a good bit with the crash. 1.2 bn is probably a fair enough price after 10 lost years.

The company was privatised in 1991 but poor old Irish Life never really knew what to do- there were various stabs at branching out of the dependence on Ireland but they were all sold off and then came the marriage with Irish Permanent where they tore the banking ar$e out of it.

I wonder how many of the senior heads will be defenestrated.

fyi

Ugliest Danish Banks Find No Buyers in Toxic Asset Trap

”’It was Rohde’s financial model that identified the noxious cocktail of bad assets lurking on the balance sheet of Amagerbanken A/S well before its 2011 failure. The event triggered Europe’s first senior bondholder losses in a state- backed resolution, and Rohde says more bail-ins can’t be ruled out. Legislation designed to spur mergers and avoid creditor losses will probably fall short as potential buyers balk at the prospect of absorbing toxic debt, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-17/ugliest-danish-banks-find-no-buyers-in-toxic-asset-trap.html

Senior bondholder losses? Shurely not!

The Minister is making a very big play of the fact that he got his money back. Makes it look like he was a shrewd cookie when he bought it. What is being glossed over is that the Minister bought Irish Life off himself. He set the price. This was not a purchase in the market. Good that he got his money back, for sure. Did he pay himself enough in the first place?

Irish Life was a successful Irish company since 1939. A sad day for Irish Life and Ireland. How Michael Noonan can spin this a success story is beyond belief.

Canada Life has been in Ireland since 1903 managing the savings of generations of Irish savers. I understand it to be a large commercial property owner in Dublin.

This may be good news for the state but for original shareholders in IL&P its a total wipe out. These includes large institutional shareholders, possibly including Irish life pension funds, who for some reason voted to support the ministers original scheme to re capitalise Permanent using Irish Life. One would have thought that liquidating Permanent and keeping Irish Life, or a variation of same, would have been in their interest

I have not seen any reports of the results of recent court cases by shareholders led by Piotr Skoczylas of scotchstone-capital against the Minister and the Directors of IL&P. Would be interested to know what happened.

@Tull
The control/brain jobs and profits will be will be based at headquarters Canada–Ireland will be an outpost for their cash cow. A great deal for the Canadians.

RBS April 2010

Irish Life & Permanent*

“The Finance Minister’s prudent decision to seek an extension to the current
guarantee scheme is a positive interim development, however, a ‘permanent’
solution for IL&P’s banking arm is potentially more elusive than previously
envisioned. We reiterate our Hold recommendation and €3 target price.”

CS Sept 2010

“Publication of regulatory capital review a positive: On Friday afternoon
(10 September), the Irish regulator published the results of its Prudential
Capital Assessment Review (PCAR) for IPM. The main conclusion is that
IPM is not required to raise any additional capital in order to meet the base
case of 8% core Tier 1 (of which 7% must be common equity), but does
need to raise an additional €145mn of Core Tier 1 capital to meet the ‘stress
case’ scenario. More importantly, IPM confirmed that in the event of a
restructuring of the bank/insurance operations as part of its bid for EBS, the
group would require c€925m of incremental capital compared to the
c€1080m we had previously estimated – this would imply a smaller overall
rights issue of c€600-650m rather than our previously expected €750m. As a
result, we raise our 12-month price target to €3.3 a share.
One catalyst down: This review should be a positive for IPM as it provides
clarity on the company’s capital position, and has lowered the expected size
of any capital raising. The next potential catalysts remain 1) confirmation that
the EU accepts IPM’s viability plan and 2) the success of the current bid for
the smaller EBS building society.

Intrinsic value well above the current share-price: Even assuming a
capital raising in the region of €650m we see significant upside potential;
Fair value for insurance operations is at least €1.8bn (1x EV) compared with
a pro-forma market cap of c€1.1bn – giving at least 67% upside. With the
bank recapitalised and moving back towards profitability in 2013
(management target a 10% RoE for the bank), some value should attach to
the bank, with upside rising to 100% if this is valued at 40% of tangible book.”

I think the company had no friends at Euro level.

Hats off to David Went on his stewardship of this once great Irish company.
Best wishes to him and his new friends at the Irish Times–the paper of record. Keep up the good work.

Michael Noonan is now wearing the Canadian jersey.–say goodbye to the Irish jersey. In matters of Church or State the man with the money carries the weight.

Minister Noonan said “War is good,freedom is slavery,ignorance is strength-Irish Life is bad ,Canada Life is good.

Latest government press release.

Congratulations to the multi-million dollar salaried Allen Loney of GreatWest life in achieving the greatest deal of all times. The price paid ,will within a few years represent one years profit of Irish life.
The mountie always gets his man. Hats off to the all concerned.

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