THE CHIEF financial officer of Anglo Irish Bank, Maarten Van Eden, was highly critical of the handling of the bank by the State authorities in his resignation speech to staff on Thursday.
Mr Van Eden, the second most senior executive on the management team installed by the Government, read out parts of his resignation letter submitted to the bank’s chief executive Mike Aynsley and chairman Alan Dukes.
He expressed unhappiness with the bank’s day-to-day interaction with the Department of Finance and the National Treasury Management Agency, which manages the Government’s banking interests.
He spoke to about 70 staff in the bank’s finance section, outlining the reasons for his decision to quit in a speech described as “explosive” by one source who heard it.
Mr Van Eden is understood to have submitted his resignation shortly before Christmas following the publication of the Government’s new bank reform legislation, the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act. The new law gives the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan sweeping powers to restructure the banks.
The announcement of his departure surprised staff as he had been in the role for just over a year.
Mr Van Eden declined to make any further comment beyond a short statement issued by Anglo, which said he would depart “at an agreed date between April 30th and June 30th”.
His resignation came just two days after Anglo said it expected to post a loss of €17.6 billion for 2010, the largest in Irish corporate history, beating the previous record, also held by the bank.
A former executive with Dutch lender ING and Wall Street bank JP Morgan, Mr Van Eden will finalise Anglo’s 2010 accounts before his departure.
A key member of the team appointed to clean up Anglo, Mr Van Eden helped devise the new management’s plan to create a good bank and bad bank out of Anglo which was rejected by the Government and the EU Commission.
The bank will now be merged with Irish Nationwide Building Society following the sale of deposits and corresponding assets and run down on an orderly basis over several years.
