State’s holdings in Irish banks valued at €16.4bn, says Noonan

The State's holdings in AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB are currently valued at about €16.4 billion by the Department of Finance.

This has emerged in a written reply from Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to a question from Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath.

The Minister said the State's 99.8 per cent equity holding in AIB was valued at €11.7 billion at the end of 2014 by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, an entity that operates under the umbrella of the National Treasury Management Agency.

This includes the €3.5 billion in preferences shares held by the State in AIB, which have a par redemption value.

In addition, the State holds contingent capital notes in AIB valued at €1.6 billion. This brings the total valuation of AIB to €13.3 billion. The bank received a €20.8 billion bailout from taxpayers between 2009 and 2011.

The State’s near 14 per cent equity holding in Bank of Ireland was worth €1.6 billion as per its closing share price in Dublin on May 1st.

Equity holding

The 75 per cent equity holding in Permanent TSB is valued at €1.5 billion based on the €4.50- a-share capital-raising completed by the bank on May 5th.

This brings the total to €16.4 billion, some way short of the €29.5 billion in bailout funds that AIB, Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent (now Permanent TSB) received from taxpayers.

However, these figures do not take account of the fact that Bank of Ireland has already paid back its bailout funds in full while the State sold Irish Life for €1.3 billion to Canada’s Great-West Lifeco in mid-2013.

The State also generated €539 million from the capital- raising undertaken by PTSB earlier this month.

As part of this, PTSB repurchased the CoCos held by the Government at a premium to their face value, netting proceeds of €442 million.

In addition, the Government sold shares in PTSB to allow the company meet the 25 per cent minimum free float requirements of the Irish and London stock exchanges. This yielded it €97.2 million.

Mr Noonan has said on a number of occasions that he expects the State to get back all of the funds put into AIB, Bank of Ireland and IL&P.

However, the €35 billion used to support Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society will not be recouped.