AIB's board of directors will meet today amid expectations that it is close to announcing who will succeed Michael Buckley as its next chief executive.
The bank has been trawling for a new chief since the end of last year and has conducted interviews in the past month with up to six people said to have been shortlisted for the post.
The bank has come in for much criticism in recent years in relation to its culture and its propensity for becoming embroiled in controversy, leading some analysts to expect that the bank's chairman, Dermot Gleeson, may favour bringing in an outsider to head the Republic's biggest bank.
Most observers are expecting the bank to select the new chief executive from within its own ranks.
The front runner is Eugene Sheehy, the former head of its retail bank and who moved to the US and is currently executive vice-president and a director of M&T Bank, the financial institution in which AIB has a 22.5 per cent stake.
Colm Doherty, the head of AIB's capital markets division is also seen as a strong contender for the post.
Others in the running are finance director Gary Kennedy; Gerry Byrne, head of its Polish bank; and Goodbody Stockbrokers head Roy Barrett.
The board is also expected to approve the proposal to forward fund a €320 million extension of its office facilities at its headquarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. It is the largest pre-funding property transaction in the Irish market.
The bank is understood to have received up to 10 expressions of interest in relation to the sale and leaseback of the new office block it is building at its Ballsbridge headquarters.
Quinlan Private, which represents a number of high-net-worth individuals and which last year acquired the Savoy Hotel group for €1.2 billion, is believed to be one of a number of institutions and private equity partnerships interested.
AIB's private banking arm is also said to have been assembling a consortium of private investors to bid for the new five-storey block, which will have the capacity to double AIB's workforce at the site to 4,000.
