Ireland

Irish bank stocks opened down on Monday morning, as investors responded to stress tests from the European Banking Authority which placed AIB and Bank of Ireland among the worst performers in Europe, the Irish Times reported. Across Europe however, bank shares largely shrugged off the results of Friday’s tests. Italy’s Monte dei Paschi was the biggest loser, but has bounced as much as 10 per cent Monday morning after it was the subject to a last-minute rescue deal that means it will avoid a part-nationalisation.

A Dubai-based firm has failed to get a Supreme Court order aimed at preventing it being sued here over its acquisition of a multi-million euro property in India from companies controlled by members of the family of businessman Sean Quinn, the Irish Times reported.

AIB will pay the State €1.76 billion tomorrow to redeem loan notes issued to it in July 2011 as part of its bailout from taxpayers, the Irish Times reported. This payment will involve the bank paying €1.6 billion to redeem the contingent capital notes (CoCos) at face value along with accrued interest of €160 million. The payment will coincide with the release of AIB’s financial results for the first six months of this year. Éamonn Hughes, a banking analyst with Irish stockbroker Goodbody, has forecast AIB will announce a net profit of €623 million.

Hospital equipment supplier Eurosurgical is likely to owe the Revenue Commissioners a substantial sum when the company’s final tax liability is calculated by its liquidator, the Irish Times reported. The High Court recently appointed George Maloney of RSM as liquidator to Dublin-based Eurosurgical, whose main creditor is Revenue, which had issued it with an assessment for €3 million. Mr Maloney is investigating Eurosurgical’s activities over a lengthy period leading up to the court’s decision to place it in liquidation.

Moody’s Investors Service warned of a 62 percent rise in the deficit of the Bank of Ireland’s defined benefit funds, partly due to the outcome of the Brexit vote, is credit negative for the bank, Pensions & Investments reported yesterday. In a credit outlook note yesterday, Moody’s analysts cited a larger pension fund deficit, which hit €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) as of June 30, up from €740 million as of Dec.

Close economic partners of the U.K. have braced for a wave of possible fallouts after British voters sided with leaving the European Union: fewer of their workers in the U.K. and lower exports of machines and luxury cars, among other threats. But no country has more at stake than Ireland, whose economy is connected to the U.K. in unusually intimate ways. So in the wake of Brexit, Ireland is eyeing similarly close relations across the Atlantic — with corporate America, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Just under €180 million was spent in costs on the liquidation of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation from February 2013 up to the end of last year, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has confirmed, the Irish Times reported. The Minister told Mr Doherty it was not possible to quantify the final costs of the liquidation at this time due to the amount of work that remains outstanding.

As Irish shares threaten to enter a bear market for the first time since 2011, the outlook may depend on two events: how the UK “bails out” of the EU and whether Italy is forced to “bail in” bondholders in its ailing banks. While the Iseq index rallied almost 3 per cent in the last two days to 5,580 points, it remains 14 per cent below its May highs, driven by a sharp slump following the Brexit referendum.

Irish credit unions have seen their loan book shrink by 45 per cent in the past eight years, leaving their loans-to-assets ratio at a “dismal” level that raises serious questions about the movement’s future, according to a Government-commissioned report. The report by the Credit Union Advisory Committee, chaired by Donal McKillop, a financial services professor at Queen’s University Belfast, recommended a full review of Central Bank lending limits.

The National Asset Management Agency said it has now repaid 85 per cent of the €30.2 billion of senior bonds it issued to banks during the financial crisis to pay for their risky commercial property loans, the Irish Times reported. This comes after Nama redeemed a further €1 billion of such notes earlier today, marking its second such bond buyback so far this year. Senior bonds comprised 95 per cent of the deeply discounted payment it made to banks between 2010 and 2010 for their loans. The remaining 5 per cent is made up of subordinated bonds.