Thursday, September 9, 2010

Dividing Anglo

I was always under the impression1 that all the toxic bad debt in the Irish banks was being sucked into NAMA and that once completed the banks would be hale and hearty. There would be credit flowing, share prices would rise and dividends would be paid out to deserving pensioners.
Therefore Richard Bruton's good bank/bad bank suggestion was deemed completely unnecessary and the proposal was mocked and jeered by the government, Alan Dukes in Anglo Irish and the commentariat in the main stream media.

So how is it that 12 months on this is almost exactly the solution now being proposed for Anglo? Surely having had the poison sucked out into NAMA they should only have performing loans left in the bank? What is left to put into the Bad Bank? How many of the sub €5M loans still on their books are now classified as impaired? If it is a lot, then why are we continuing to bank roll this basketcase? If it isn't very many, then why do we need an extra entity to handle them? Won't this just create another expensive set of directors and senior management to run the hulk?

  1. Not really but this has been the official position.

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