Cantillon: Flowers may yet bloom in Ireland

Christopher Flowers's interest in Ireland remains undiminished despite having lost out in the bidding for Irish Life last year and been rebuffed in 2008 when he was part of the Mallabraca consortium looking to buy Bank of Ireland.

He told Bloomberg TV yesterday that Spain and Ireland are his preferred countries for investment in Europe. The former Goldman Sachs executive is interested in investing in firms with about €50 billion of assets, he said.

"The most interesting for us is maybe Spain followed by Ireland," he said. Spain has a "lot going on there and part of the European Union and that's appealing as an investor".

“Europe is a source of lot of opportunities at the moment as there are many companies changing and restructuring in our business of financial services,” Flowers said. The condition of the euro is also “absolutely critical to the survival of the financial-services industry”, Flowers said. “The euro will survive but it’s not a certainty and it’s a bit like Russian roulette.”

It not clear exactly what we might be looking at in Ireland. The only financial services business that is openly on the market is New Ireland, with Morgan Stanley and IBI reported to be handling the sale, which has been mandated by the troika. Standard Life is seen as the front runner there as New Ireland could be consolidated into its existing Irish business, and in any case with assets of only $12 billion Permanent TSB might be a little on the small side for Flowers and his €50 billion target.

Irish Permanent also looks a little on the small side with assets of €41 billion, but a lot of the heavy lifting has been done there by Jeremy Masding, with the business already restructured into three businesses.

AIB, with assets of €122 billion, would be a little to rich for his blood presumably but intriguingly Ulster Bank, with assets of €54.8 billion, would seem to be in Flowers's range. Flowers has already thrown his hat in the ring for the 316 UK branches that RBS has put up for sale and may well have picked up that Ulster's parent has had pretty much all the fun it can stand in Irish banking.