Anglo's top 15 clients each owe in excess of €500m

COLM KEENA and STEPHEN COLLINS


MAJOR CLIENTS of Anglo Irish Bank have been mothballing development projects, running up interest bills and trying to sell off assets, according to a report on the now nationalised bank released last night.
The report also reveals that in the last full week of September, customers withdrew €5.44 billion from the bank and the bank’s management was expecting a further €6.6 billion to be withdrawn by mid-October. The Government announced its deposits guarantee scheme on September 30th.
The heavily edited report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, released by the Department of Finance last night, states the bank has a number of very large exposures with approximately 15 customers having loans in excess of €500 million each.
By late November, a number of large customers with interests in shopping centres and land banks in the Dublin area were experiencing cashflow difficulties “and are in the process of disposing of non-core and in some cases trading assets”, the report states. It also noted there was a large overhang of unsold higher density residential developments in the Dublin area, accounting for a number of years’ supply.
The accountants said in November that losses on loans could exceed profits at the bank this year and next, under a worse-case scenario.
“We have seen significant evidence of borrowers reacting to the downturn in the residential market by effectively mothballing development sites and land banks.”
However, the accountants say it will be difficult to allow interest to roll up on loans where the loan-to-value ratios are high.
A second report released earlier yesterday showed that the directors of the bank were involved in massive borrowing from the bank in the financial year to the end of September last and that one €8 million loan to a director was secured against the bank’s shares.
At least some of the loans to directors are now expected to be written off because Anglo shares held by directors have lost their value, executive chairman Donal O’Connor said in his introduction to the bank’s 2008 annual report.
The report further shows that a number of senior directors at the bank received huge remuneration payments during a year that saw such a loss of confidence that there was a run on deposits.
Former chief executive of the bank David Drumm was paid €2.1 million in 2008, while the disgraced former chairman Seán FitzPatrick received €539,000. Former head of Irish operations Tom Browne, who retired in November 2007, received a payment of €3.75 million “in recognition of his contribution to the group”.
Mr O’Connor in his introduction to the report revealed that the 10 investors who bought a 10 per cent shareholding in the bank last year, using loans from the bank, were longstanding clients of the bank.
He said they had been given loans totalling €451 million, of which €83 million has been repaid. It was likely that €300 million of the money lent will now be written off as the security on this amount is limited to the shares purchased with the money. Mr O’Connor said “the bank will seek repayments under the borrowers’ recourse obligations as necessary” in relation to the remainder of the money lent.
The total amount lent to directors in the course of the year was €255 million, of which €122 million was money lent to Mr FitzPatrick as part of his long-standing practice of switching the bulk of his loans to Irish Nationwide at each year’s end and then moving the loans back to Anglo again afterwards.
Responding to the publication of the bank’s annual report, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said it was essential that all parties worked together to promote a positive view of Ireland around the world.

Irish times