Ireland

The European Union has successfully sold €5 billion in bonds which will be used to fund its contribution to Ireland's bailout, The Irish Times reported. The bond sale, which took place this morning, was three times over-subscribed and was sold out within an hour, the EU said. According to Bloomberg, the five-year notes were priced to yield 12 basis points more than the benchamrk swap rate, or about 2.5 per cent. That compares with 1.77 per cent on similar-maturity German government debt and 2.08 per cent on French bonds according to Bloomberg data.

An average of 30 companies went to the wall and an estimated 1,075 jobs were lost every week during 2010, according to figures released yesterday, the Irish Times reported. Information compiled by corporate restructuring specialists Kavanagh Fennell, publishers of the Insolvency Journal, show that more than 1,500 firms went into liquidation, receivership or examinership in the Republic because they were unable to pay debts.

Ireland's minister for finance, Brian Lenihan, announced plans to effectively nationalize Allied Irish Banks PLC with a capital injection of €3.7 billion ($4.85 billion), giving the government ownership of more than 90 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Allied Irish Banks received €3.5 billion in state aid in 2009, but the bank needs another €3.7 billion by year end to meet its target of boosting its core Tier 1 capital to 8 percent of risk-weighted assets.

Ireland's Finance Minister Brian Lenihan today announced plans to recapitalize Allied Irish Banks PLC by €3.7 billion ($3.93 billion) to meet the financial regulator's year-end capital requirements, effectively making it the fourth Irish lender to be nationalized, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Allied Irish Banks already received €3.5 billion in state aid in 2009, but the bank needs another €3.7 billion by year-end to meet its 8% Core Tier 1 target and, observers say, another €6.1 billion by the end of February to meet the financial regulator's 12% Core Tier 1 target.

The European Central Bank warned Ireland that proposed legislation revamping the country's financial system could threaten some of the ECB's operations, and pressed Irish officials for assurances that the central bank's collateral rights will be protected, the Wall Street Journal reported today. "The ECB has serious concerns that the draft law is insufficiently legally certain on a number of critical issues" including rules on collateral posted by banks seeking emergency loans from the ECB, the central bank said in an opinion paper posted on its website.

Even as Europe’s leaders were praising the Irish government’s deficit-cutting efforts, the country received a dramatically different verdict Friday from a credit rating agency: a steep downgrade and a warning of more to come, the International Herald Tribune reported. Having pledged late Thursday to do “whatever is required” to contain the debt crisis and defend their embattled currency, European Union leaders reconvened for the final day of a summit meeting.

A seven-judge Supreme Court has begun hearing the appeal by property investor Paddy McKillen aimed at preventing the proposed transfer to the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) of some €2.1 billion in loans made to himself and his companies, the Irish Times reported. The proposed acquisition would be “a commercial disaster” for Mr McKillen and was based on a total denial of his constitutional right to fair procedures, Michael Cush, for Mr McKillen, argued yesterday.

Ireland's parliament late Wednesday passed legislation to instruct financial institutions to sell assets and to impose losses on banks' subordinated creditors, as part of a plan to restructure the country's banking system agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund, Dow Jones reported. The Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Bill passed the final stage of voting in the lower house of parliament, or Dail, by a majority of 78 votes to 71. The ruling Fianna Fail-led coalition passed the bill with the help of Green Party and Independent lawmakers.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said it would have been "galling" to have paid €40 million in bonuses to AIB staff at a time when the Government was asking everyone in the country to make sacrifices, the Irish Times reported. Mr Lenihan said this morning he had written to AIB yesterday informing it that further investment by the taxpayer was conditional on the non-payment of any bonuses, no matter when they may have been earned. He said using taxpayers' funding to pay the bonuses was "unacceptable".

Property developer John Fleming has filed for bankruptcy to a British court, which will allow him to emerge from the process after a year, compared with up to 12 years under the Irish system, the Irish Times reported. The Cork developer, whose construction and investment firms owe €1 billion to their banks, is the first of Ireland’s major developers to make such a move. A receiver is now in control of Mr Fleming’s finances, following a declaration of bankruptcy in an Essex court. The petition gives the address of Mr Fleming and his wife as Billericay in Essex, England.