Noonan and AIB chairman to meet over Duffy successor

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan plans to meet AIB's chairman Richard Pym this week to discuss the bank's plans to identify a successor to chief executive David Duffy, who has decided to leave the company and move to Britain to head up Clydesdale Bank.

Speaking after a conference in Dublin organised by the IMF, Mr Noonan said Mr Duffy would stay until at least March, when AIB will announce its full-year results.

Earlier, at a press conference alongside IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, Mr Noonan said Mr Duffy's departure should not disrupt his plans for AIB, which is 99.8 per cent owned by the State.

Long commitment

“If he were to stay on, commit to the next phase, that would take between four and five years,” the Minister said. “He thought that level of commitment was too long.”

Mr Noonan joked there had already been a number of inquiries to fill Mr Duffy’s shoes.

Mr Noonan has appointed Goldman Sachs to advise the Government on capital restructuring actions in AIB. The appointment is expected to last for six months and pave the way for a possible IPO of the bank, and decisions about the €3.5 billion in preference shares and €1.6 billion in contingent capital notes held in AIB by the State. Mr Duffy joined AIB in December 2011 and has led the bank back to profitability. He also successfully steered AIB through the ECB’s stress tests late last year and implemented structural change, reducing the cost base by €350 million.

Both the bank and Mr Noonan have expressed the opinion the €20.8 billion taxpayer-funded bailout of AIB after the crash will be repaid in full.

Mr Pym, who only took over as AIB chairman in December, said he was “very sorry” to see Mr Duffy leave AIB. Mr Duffy said his time with AIB had been “immensely rewarding” but it was the “right time” for a new chief executive to lead the bank through the “next phase of its recovery and growth and a multiyear process of returning capital to the Irish State”.