Bank of Ireland reduced the maximum stake the Government might take in the lender to 69 per cent after a majority of subordinated bondholders took up shares in a debt-for-equity-or-cash offer, the Irish Times reported. AIB, meanwhile, said it expected the State’s stake in the bank to “increase substantially” from 93 per cent, further diluting the investments of shareholders. New shares were likely to be issued to the State at “a very significant discount” to the current share price and talks with the Government are expected to be finalised next week, the bank said.

The family of Seán Quinn have moved to protect their international property empire from Anglo Irish Bank by issuing new shares in seven subsidiaries in Sweden to a company controlled by them, the Irish Times reported. Seven subsidiaries of Quinn Investments Sweden, the holding company behind the family’s properties in Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and India, have issued new shares to a company called Indian Trust AB, which they also control.

The Quinn family’s Swedish company is “hopelessly insolvent” and has no possibility of repaying massive loans owed to Anglo Irish Bank, lawyers for the bank told a Swedish court yesterday, the Irish Times reported. Quinn Investments Sweden has no more than 30,000 Swedish Krona (€3,277) in its coffers and lacks the assets to cover the 16 billion SEK (€1.8 billion) owed to the bank, Anglo’s lawyers said. Anglo wants a bankruptcy receiver appointed to Quinn Investments, the holding company for the family’s international properties in Russia, Sweden, Britain, Turkey and Ukraine.

Ireland’s “unilateral” bank guarantee of September 2008 was the trigger for subsequent EU-level actions to preserve Continent-wide financial stability, according to Joaquin Almunia, EU commissioner for competition, the Irish Times reported. Speaking to an audience of bankers in Dublin yesterday, the Spaniard repeated criticisms he made earlier in the week of the guarantee. Among other things, Mr Almunia said that it had limited the “margin for manoeuvre to seek burden-sharing from senior bondholders”.

Europe’s competition commissioner has declared Ireland’s banking guarantee was a mistake whose sweeping scope served to concentrate losses on taxpayers, the Irish Times reported. Joaquín Almunia told The Irish Times that the intervention in September 2008 resulted in citizens having to assume responsibility for losses that would have been “better distributed” in the absence of an unlimited guarantee.

Irish high net-worth individuals who invested £92 million in the Quinlan Private-led purchase of a portfolio of almost 50 Marriott hotels in the UK in 2007 have seen their investment wiped out, after a receiver was appointed to the portfolio of hotels, the Irish Times reported. Royal Bank of Scotland has appointed Ernst & Young as receiver to over 42 Marriott hotels in one of the largest ever corporate restructurings of the hotel sector.

More than half of the 882 smaller companies that responded to an ISME survey on access to credit from banks said they had been turned down, RTÉ News reported. The quarterly Bank Watch Survey reveals that 54% of small and medium sized businesses were turned down in the last three months. That compares to 48% refused credit in the prior three months. ISME said that 72% of its members feel banks are once again making it more difficult to access finance despite pronouncements to the contrary.

A comprehensive source of information on new lending and demand for credit was called for yesterday to ensure businesses were not dissuaded from applying for bank credit, the Irish Times reported. John Moran, head of bank restructuring with the Department of Finance, said such a source would be “key to showing the reality” of both the demand for and supply of credit. At the annual Experian business lunch Mr Moran said the Government needed to “push ahead” with developing a strategy to put in place a more effective credit information system in Ireland.

The French government has opened the door to a compromise in the stand-off over Ireland’s corporate tax rate, saying it will take into account Ireland’s “singular situation” in deciding its stance, the Irish Times reported. Amid signs that Paris and Berlin are waiting for a gesture from Ireland, government spokesman François Baroin said no decision had been taken on whether to maintain French opposition to Ireland’s request for a reduction in the interest rate on its bailout loans. “The discussions are continuing.

Bank of Ireland has painted a worst-case scenario where the State’s stake would rise to 87 per cent if no bondholders accept its debt for cash or shares proposals and investors shun a subsequent rights issue, the Irish Times reported. The bank said it planned to issue shares at between 11.3 cent and 11.8 cent a share to subordinated bondholders taking up a debt-for-equity swap before July 7th. This compares with yesterday’s closing price of 14 cent.