Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 May 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Richie Boucher:

No I don't think so ... Chairman ... we were early into a restructuring plan. I think the Commission was taking a very doctrinaire approach at that time. We were required to sell certain businesses and we did negotiate in 2012 to substitute, so these are called punishment measures, moral hazard measures, to go back to your ... moral hazards - you got state aid, people must ... you must suffer. We were required to sell certain businesses. I would have preferred not to, but if we had not had clarity in our potential or existing investors' minds as to what the shape of the group would look like, and we hadn't done the deal with the Commission, I don't think we could have raised the capital to the extent we could. It's counterfactual but I ... in honest answer to your question, and my opinion is ... that ... it didn't influence ultimately because it was the state aid we got from the preference shares which brought the measures.

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