Ireland

Ms Justice Marie Baker appointed Declan McDonald of PwC as interim examiner to Karen Millen Irl Ltd, Warehouse Fashion Irl Ltd and Coast Stores Irl Ltd following petitions by Rossa Fanning on behalf of the companies, the Irish Times reported. The court heard the companies have a reasonable prospect of survival if a number of conditions are met including renegotiation of rents and closure of uneconomic stores.

The consequences of the Central Bank’s proposals to restrict mortgage lending will be “far more far reaching than many realise”, PIBA, the Professional Insurance Brokers Association, warned today, the Irish Times reported. Speaking at the organisation’s annual industry awards ceremony, Rachel Doyle, chief operations officer warned about the impact of the Central Bank’s proposal which would see the majority of mortgage applicants required to come up with a 20 per cent deposit for a mortgage.

Ireland moved close to an accord on repaying International Monetary Fund bailout loans early, with Sweden set to become the last European Union nation to agree, the Irish Times reported. The Swedish parliament’s finance committee today unanimously proposed to allow Ireland to refinance IMF funds without triggering similar payments on its lower-cost European loans. Sweden is the last EU approval needed, and a vote by parliament in Stockholm is scheduled for November 19, Lars Widlund, a civil servant at the committee, said by phone today.

Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a decision permitting the family of bankrupt businessman Sean Quinn advance legal claims which could lead to their avoiding liability for €2.34 billion loans, the Irish Times reported. Patricia Quinn and her five children say they had no knowledge of activities surrounding the loans made to Quinn companies by IBRC’s predecessor, Anglo Irish Bank. They claim the loans were illegal because they were used to support the bank’s share price and they cannot therefore be made liable for them.

Irish MEP and former Government minister Brian Hayes said today the Central Bank’s plan to require borrowers to have a 20 per cent deposit to get a home loan was “unfair”, and called for cheaper longer term loans to be introduced.

Bank of Ireland repossessed 621 owner-occupied or buy-to-let properties in the first half of this year, according to documents submitted to the Oireachtas finance committee in advance of the appearance by its chief executive Richie Boucher today, the Irish Times reported. Bank of Ireland has told the committee that 322 judgments were enforced against owner-occupiers, with 299 on buy-to-let investments. This means that the property was either in the bank’s possession or had been sold. In the first six months of this year, the bank had sold 80 properties that it had repossessed.

Ryanair is one step closer to taking over Cyprus Airways after getting through to the second round of bidding for the ailing flag carrier at the weekend, the Irish Times reported. The Irish airline was one of 15 which submitted proposals to the Cypriot government in September to acquire and turn around Cyprus Airways, which in 2012 needed a €73 million state bailout after losing €56 million. According to incoming finance chief Neil Sorahan, Ryanair was informally told on Friday that it was on a shortlist, meaning it is through to the second round of the process.

Irish banks are preventing small businesses from growing “beyond a certain size” because they only offer them short-term loans, according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, the Irish Times reported. Speaking yesterday at the launch of the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), which will make up to €5 billion in cheap, longer-term loans available to small and medium-sized businesses over five years, the Minister pointed out these enterprises were a very important part of the economy. “But once they reach a certain size they do not continue to grow,” he said.

Six specialist judges appointed to speed up thousands of insolvency actions - earning salaries of €140,623 a year - are "frustrated" because they have so little work to do, Independent.ie reported. The dedicated cadre of judges were appointed in July 2013 to deal with an anticipated avalanche of debt cases, following what former Justice Minister Alan Shatter described as a "seismic shift" brought in by the 2012 Personal Insolvency Act.

Permanent TSB and its advisers plan to canvass more than 30 institutional investors and private equity groups in Europe and the US in the coming weeks to seek an investment of €200 million or more to help plug a shortfall in its capital identified yesterday as part of a pan-European exercise by regulators, the Irish Times reported. Permanent TSB was the only bank in Ireland to fail the European Central Bank’s stress tests. The ECB found a capital shortfall of €854.8 million but PTSB said it has already accounted for more than 80 per cent of this through various actions.