Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 3 September 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Peter Fitzgerald:
Yes. So there were people that had that view but it was an individual view. It wasn't necessarily a wide view at that time and I make mention in my witness statement that the bank then brought in three investment banks in, and I'm not 100% sure of the timing of this, it was either in late 2006 or early 2007. I believe it was on the instigation of the head of capital markets at the time basically on how our balance sheet was being structured to fund future growth. I believe those investment banks were BNP, Barclays and Merrill Lynch. They came in. We gave them substantial information in advance. They did a due diligence process and they presented to executive directors and the wide member ... and a wide grouping of the management team and I believe I highlight in the witness statement that they reaffirmed that we should be slowing growth in terms of our lending books, that our funding bases, while they had proved successful to date, were quite thin, and what I meant by that, is we were wholesale and customer and then the customer itself was just in a couple of markets.
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