Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 November 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Overview of Banking Sector: AIB

1:00 pm

Mr. David Duffy:

That is not what we are planning. The senior executives did not enjoy that experience and that is not our intention. We have stated clearly that we have a three year job to deliver an investable bank. That means getting to profitability in a sustainable way, with a passed stress test, approval from the European Commission, functional lending capacity showing that the largest lender in the economy is performing its role, arrears being addressed materially and non-performing loans being reduced. That is the story. We have been educating investors, not to sell the bank but to ascertain whether the team is delivering what it needs to deliver for the bank to be investable. These discussions will continue. We are now in a position where we hope to be able to say in March that the half year result has continued in terms of its momentum and that the bank is now profitable, well capitalised and meeting the criteria with regard to lending and arrears, etc. We want to be able to say at that point that the bank is investable. Decisions on when to sell, at what price to sell and how much to sell are entirely in the hands of the shareholders. That is what happens. We have to fix the capital architecture before we can sell the bank. We do not yet know what the capital solutions are. We do not know from the Central Bank what the total capital stack is and until we do, we cannot fix-----