The Irish government may be forced to take controlling stakes in Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent, the last of the country’s biggest lenders to escape state control, following tomorrow’s stress tests.
“They’ve clearly got most to lose,” said Oliver Gilvarry, head of research at Dublin-based Dolmen Securities, who has “sell” rating on both banks. “It’s difficult to see how either will end up less than 50 per cent owned by taxpayers.”
The Irish Central Bank will at 4.30 pm tomorrow publish its third round of stress tests. The results will determine if the two can avoid joining four of the country’s biggest banks in majority state ownership after they all logged record losses as the country’s decade-long real estate bubble burst.
Ireland may require banks to raise an additional ¤27.5 billion ($39 billion) of capital, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The government has pledged to provide that money if banks fail to raise it themselves from a ¤35-billion fund set up under the country’s international bailout in November. Shares of the two lenders have declined by more than 50 per cent since that rescue.
Shares decline
Irish Life, whose shares fell 45 per cent in Dublin trading yesterday to 40 euro cents, has sought a temporary suspension in trading in its stock until April 1, after the results of stress tests are revealed, it said in a statement on Wednesday. The assessment is “not completed and the quantum of capital that may be required by the group, and the source of that capital, is not yet finalised,” it said.
Bank of Ireland’s shares fell as much as 2.4 euro cents, or 9.7 per cent, in Dublin trading to 22.3 cents, marking its lowest level since March 17, 2009. They were down 8.9 per cent at 22.5 cents at 8.39 am.
More From This Section
Spokesmen at Bank of Ireland, the central bank and Finance Ministry in Dublin declined to comment.
The government has already taken control of Anglo Irish Bank, Allied Irish Banks, EBS Building Society and Irish Nationwide Building Society after injecting ¤46.3 billion into the industry over two years.
Niall O’Connor, a London-based analyst at Credit Suisse Group, expects the government to take a stake of about 60 per cent in Bank of Ireland, the country’s biggest lender.
“It’s struck me for some time that the bank would find it very difficult avoiding this,” he said. “Still, government control is not necessarily a bad thing as it aligns the interests of government with that of investors in looking to generate a profit.”
Capital shortfall
Even before the latest stress tests, the regulator ordered Bank of Ireland, already 36 per cent state-owned, to raise about ¤1.4 billion, more than its market value of ¤1.3 billion on Wednesday.
Irish Life, the only government-guaranteed lender to avoid a bailout so far, was ordered to raise ¤243 million in November. That’s now equivalent to twice its market value on Wednesday.
The Dublin-based company may require more than ¤1 billion to allow its banking unit to operate without support from the company’s life and pension operations, Eamonn Hughes, an analyst with Dublin-based securities firm Goodbody Stockbrokers, said in a note to clients yesterday. The stress tests “may drive this base figure higher again,” he said.
Both Bank of Ireland and Irish Life, the country’s largest life assurance and pensions company, will “fight hard” to avoid falling under government control, said James Forbes, director of investment solutions at Dublin-based securities firm Bloxham, which manages about ¤1 billion of assets.
“A pragmatic and likely solution would be for the government to give both companies a certain period of time to sell further assets and raise equity, while pledging to support them if they are not successful in raising money privately,” he said.
The previous Irish government had been in talks to acquire non-voting shares in Bank of Ireland, two people with knowledge of the situation said on February 4. The securities would convert into stock if the bank failed to raise the same amount in a rights offering to repay the government, they said.
Bank of Ireland was established in 1783. It was appointed official banker to the Irish government when the state became independent from the UK in 1922.
“It would be foolish to assume anything other than Bank of Ireland falling under majority state control,” said Brian Lucey, associate professor of finance at Trinity College, Dublin. “If they do avoid that, it’s a signal that the government is low-balling the number.”