State’s Bank of Ireland stake falls below key 3% level

The State’s stake in Bank of Ireland has fallen below 3 per cent, a key threshold for Irish publicly quoted companies. Stakes above this level must be disclosed to the stock market.

The stake, held by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) on behalf of the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, fell below that level to stand at 2.96 per cent as of Monday, Bank of Ireland said in a statement to the stock exchange on Wednesday.

The Government has been steadily drip-feeding Bank of Ireland shares into the market since late June 2021, when it owned 13.9 per cent of the bank.

It is expected that the shareholding, a legacy of the bank’s crisis-era bailout, will fall to zero over the coming months, allowing Bank of Ireland to become the first Irish lender to return to full private ownership since the sector imploded during the financial crisis of 2008.

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The bank’s chief executive, Francesca McDonagh, plans to quit the group in September, after five years, to become a senior executive with Credit Suisse.

Bank of Ireland received a €4.7 billion rescue from the State during the financial crisis and has since returned about €6.5 billion to taxpayers, including through the repayment of bailout bonds, share sales, dividends, coupons and guarantee fees.

The Minister for Finance also started selling down the State’s stake in AIB this year, falling from 71 per cent to just below 69 per cent as of the middle of last month. The State has so far recouped about €10.8 billion of AIB’s €20.8 billion bailout bill.