Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 5 October 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Banking Sector in Ireland (Resumed): Ulster Bank
9:30 am
Mr. Andrew Blair:
Approximately 100. Relatively low numbers of receivers were appointed, which reflects the fact that during the period 2008 to 2013, and most notably during the period 2010 to 2013, customers were granted very significant levels of forbearance when they were in a position where they were unable to pay. To the extent that we thought we could support people to get to viability, we did everything in our powers to get them to the point where they were viable. The reality is that during that period, the extent of equity funds, debt funds or indeed performance of businesses was extremely limited. If I contrast that with where we are today, in the past 18 months I can think of ten cases were there was €140 million of debt involved. Those companies were able to raise almost €30 million of equity. We were able to restructure them and move on. Those sorts of funds could not have been raised in the period from 2010 to 2013, which meant that businesses which were already struggling for viability could not get restructured.
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