Anglo Irish posts €4.1bn half-year loss

by Gill Montia

Story link: Anglo Irish posts €4.1bn half-year loss

Anglo Irish Bank has reported a €4.1 billion pre-tax loss for the six months to the end of March 2009.

The Irish government is proposing to inject a further €4 billion into the lender, which has been hit by bad debts on property loans.

The bank has warned that further impairment charges for the three years to the end of September 2011 could involve an additional €3.5 billion.

Anglo Irish was nationalised earlier this year after plans to inject €1.5 billion into the bank, in return for a 75% stake, were rejected by the Irish Government because the sum was insufficient to recapitalise the business.

The bank had been in difficulties since late December when its chairman, Sean Fitzpatrick, resigned and its share price plummeted.

Mr Fitzpatrick admitted to temporarily transferring loans of €87 million with Anglo Irish to another bank, before the group’s financial year end.

He claimed the loans were made to him on a commercial basis but agreed he had acted inappropriately.

Similar transfers had apparently occurred over the past eight years, meaning that the loans did not appear in annual accounts during the period.

Commenting on the worst loss in Irish banking history, executive chairman, Donal O’Connor, said: “This has been a most difficult period for Anglo Irish Bank culminating in the reporting of a pre-tax loss of €4.1 billion. This is as a result of significant impairment charges on the Bank’s loan portfolio following continued deterioration in the economic environment in each of our core markets and further declines in property values.”