Troika endorses plan to secure independent future for PTSB
By Laura Noonan
Thursday April 26 2012
PERMANENT TSB's future as a stand-alone institution has been secured after officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund threw their weight behind a plan to preserve the bank's independence.
Sources last night confirmed that the troika had endorsed management's plans to carve Permanent TSB into a 'good bank', that will include its healthier loans, and a 'bad bank', that will include some tracker mortgages and UK assets.
The bad bank will then be wound down over a number of years and some assets may be sold more swiftly.
The good bank will be a mainstream retail lender, focusing on residential mortgages and other consumer loans. Between them, they will have a total balance sheet of about €14bn.
The scale of the good bank may be boosted with a contract to service tens of billion of troubled tracker mortgages that are being moved from AIB and Permanent TSB into IBRC (formerly Anglo).
Address
Sources last night stressed that some of the finer details of Permanent TSB's plan had yet to be worked out. However, an agreement is expected to be announced today as part of the troika's review of the Irish bailout programme.
The announcement is likely to be made by Finance Minister Michael Noonan when he addresses the media at midday for his regular press conference after the troika's quarterly review mission.
At his press conference in January, Mr Noonan made the surprise announcement that Permanent TSB's strategic future was to be examined by the troika -- something that could result in the bank being either developed independently, merged or shut.
The Government had initially favoured putting Permanent TSB into AIB, but this met with a cool response from the latter's management.
Some elements of the troika argued in favour of keeping Permanent TSB as a stand-alone institution in the interests of fostering competition in the banking market but stressed that this would only be possible if Permanent TSB could demonstrate its viability.
Permanent TSB chief executive Jeremy Masding, who joined the bank in January, was charged with drawing up a plan to make it viable after it shed €23bn of loss-making trackers and was separated from its life-insurance arm, Irish Life.
Mr Masding's plan provided for Permanent TSB to keep some of its loss-making trackers so that it would have sufficient scale to cover its cost base.
Proactive approach
He also wants the bank to take a more proactive approach in dealing with troubled mortgages and to pitch for business servicing the tracker loans that will be transferred to IBRC as part of a broader bank restructuring plan.
Permanent TSB made its pitch to the troika last Wednesday and impressed officials with its proposals, the Irish Independent understands.
It is understood that management has been informed that its pitch was successful.
A spokesman for the bank last night declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Department of Finance confirmed that the Government had committed to "agree a way forward for PTSB by the end of April 2012".
"The sixth review of the programme will conclude tomorrow and, as per previous reviews, a press conference will be held and the changes agreed to the Memorandum of Understanding will be outlined," the spokesman added.
- Laura Noonan
www.independent.ie/business/irish/...ure-for-ptsb-3092487.html
Ja ist denn heut' scho' Weihnachten?
Da hat unser Managment ja tolle Arbeit geleistet !! Die Troika wurde voll überzeugt....
Na wenn das keine guten News sind
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