This coming Wednesday 25th January 2012 will see Ireland pay €1,250m to unsecured unguaranteed bondholders in what was Anglo Irish Bank Corporation. This entry provides the detail of what is happening.
What: €1,250m of Anglo Irish Bank senior bonds, not covered by the September 2008 guarantee, not secured against Anglo assets. The bonds were originally issued on 25th January 2007; the ISIN reference for the bond is XS0283695228. You can view its price and its history here. It was trading at close to 60c in the dollar in early 2011. Anglo is set to receive a total of €29.3bn from the State, comprising €4bn in cash paid in 2009 and €25.3bn of promissory notes.
How Much: €1,250m equal to all the new tax to be raised in Ireland in 2012 as a result of Budget 2012. More than the €800m the entire economy is expected to grow in 2012 according to the most recent IMF forecast. 0.8% of our GDP or 1% of our GNP.
When: Wednesday 25th January, 2012
Who (is paying): The bond will be repaid by someone in the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (“IBRC”, the name of the new company formed by the merger of Anglo with Irish Nationwide Building Society). IBRC’s chief executive is Australian, Mike Aynsley, its chairman is Alan Dukes. IBRC is 100% owned by the State so Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan is the principal Government member responsible for the payment.
Who (is being paid): The identities of the bondholders are not public. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has described them as “speculative investors”. The Guido Fawkes blog published what it claimed was a partial list of bondholders last October 2010. Senator David Norris began naming them in the Seanad last December 2010 but was told by the chairman Pat Moylan that he was out of order.
Where: The payment will be made by IBRC whose head office is at 18/21 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2 (pictured) but ultimate responsibility lies with the Government, and principally Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan and his Department of Finance at Government Buildings, Upper Merrion Street (pictured)
Why: Not clear; but NOT because it is a term of the Memorandum of Understanding with the bailout troika of the IMF/EU/ECB – this was confirmed by Enda Kenny in the Dail last year, but Donal Donovan, formerly of the IMF but now a member of the Fiscal Advisory Council said during the week that Anglo bondholder debt might be considered sovereign debt and consequently part of the agreement; not because it is in any public agreement with the ECB though the ECB refuses to hand over some communication it has had with Ireland. The ECB last week said at the Troika news conference that the payment was so as to ensure confidence in the Irish banking system which I take to be a veiled threat that if it is not paid, the ECB may seek adjustment to the terms upon which it presently provides €151.4bn of funding to Irish banks (secured against appropriate bank collateral). The ECB adopts its position apparently from fear that a default on bondholders in Ireland would mean interest rates demanded by bondholders throughout Europe would rise and that consequently the costs to all European economies would increase, and also that if Irish banks default, the precedent might allow other European banks to default, which would undermine confidence in the entire European banking system. Blair Horan of the Civil and Public Services Union last week supported the payment to the bondholders saying that it strengthenedIreland’s reputation as it tries to recover from the crisis.
Any other argument in favour of the payment? Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan have both claimed that Anglo is paying the bonds from its own resources. This is technically correct in the sense that Ireland gives money to Anglo and Anglo takes that money and gives it to bondholders. No independent commentator that I am aware of, credits the claim that this is anything but a payment by Ireland (and even if Anglo is paying it, we own 100% of Anglo) Separately Minister Noonan claims that he is focussing on negotiating new terms on the Anglo promissory notes, but he has been doing that for at least four months without any evidence of success.
Protests? So far, not really. Today sees the 46th weekly Ballyhea/Charleville bondholder protest in Charleville where a group – varies, might be 10 people, might be 50 – will walk for 10 minutes along the street with a sign. The group maintains the Bondwatch website which details all bonds payable in Irish banks, and there are at least two associated Facebook pages. There is a new umbrella organisation called Not Our Debt which formed last week and is planning a public meeting this week. There is the Occupy group which is planning protests between 23-25th January. But this is Ireland, and unless there are union organised protests, or pensioners/students then recent history shows that protests will be on a small scale; but who knows.. In the Dail, FG and Labour will support the payment, Fianna Fail still seems to be suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So it will probably again fall to Sinn Fein and the technical group of Independents and the United Left Alliance to articulate protest to the payment.
Map indicating the Anglo (now IBRC) registered office at 21 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2 (indicated by red arrow)
NAMA Wine Lake 
I guess you know that IBRC are not really working out of that building anymore . . .
@ec, really? When I was there a few weeks ago, they were most certainly working there. The IBRC website still shows 18/21 St Stephen’s Green as the registered office of IBRC.
http://www.ibrc.ie/
Any evidence to back up your claim?
Explain to me the difference between a Lloyds Name and a limited company. And when exactly did shareholders get on the hook for everything that a company. Surely this warrants a spin to the Supreme court to stay payment and actually test the thing.
Ireland has been invaded,they were invited actually,now suffering Blowback,or the law of uninteded consequences.
“Specifically, blowback denotes the resultant, violent consequences—reported as news fact, by domestic and international mass communications media, when the actor intelligence agency hides its responsibility via media manipulation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)
@VincentH,
Lloyd’s Name: Historically regarded as being liable “down to their cufflinks”
Limited Company: What it says on the can. Liability limited to its net assets.
No evidence. Just lots of anecdotal stuff about the building being very quiet, namechange outside to ESB something or other, and the fact that 2 x other Dublin office addresses are also given on the IBRC website.
@ec, you are right that the building is shared, IBRC have offices on the ground floor – front, right hand side of the building – and another floor, the ESB is now also a tenant. It is still the registered office for IBRC and the place where the CEO Mike Aynsley goes to work every day as far as I know.
Black Wednesday or black op’s.
“Sources said the thieves behaved in a “professional” manner, wearing hooded tops and obscuring their faces.”
“However, there is no evidence to suggest that Mr Aynsley was specifically targeted. Other items, including a camera and an iPod, were also taken, lending weight to the theory that the motive was simply financial gain rather than an attempt to steal information.”
So 3 ‘professionals’ undertook a crime of opportunity,dont cameras and ipods have memory things……..
That Rev. office on Navan road its the top secret one,state of the art security and all that.
“Details of the laptop theft emerged just days after 10 laptops were stolen from a Revenue Commissioners’ office.
The break-in occurred at the Revenue’s offices on the Navan Road in north Dublin, where major investigations into tax evaders and gangland criminals are conducted.”
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/anglo-chiefs-laptop-stolen-2525225.html
And,where are the guards in all this,hold on the top one just left to work for B of I.
“The senior garda detective who was in charge of the Anglo-Irish investigation for 18 months took early retirement at the end of last year and is now working with Bank of Ireland, it has emerged.
Former detective superintendent Pat Collins, 52, was regarded as the Garda’s top expert in corporate fraud investigation. He spent much of his career in the Fraud Squad and before taking charge of the Anglo investigation he spent time on secondment with the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement working with its director, Paul Appleby.
Former colleagues say his departure — on full pension after having served 30 years in the force — will be a major blow to the investigation.”
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/senior-garda-fraud-specialist-retires-to-work-for-bank-of-ireland-2996243.html
What I find amusing is those who think we have no option but to pay. We just take back our Oil reserves from Shell on foot of the fact that the deal was negotiated by a now convicted criminal i.e. Ray Burke, and was he not done for bribery and corruption? Well come on now Shell. Tough luck Shell, we are taking it back. Now if they want to renegotiate, they can but I’d suggest we find a new client company. Burn Shell and what the hell!
Then we burn the Bond Holders and use our Oil wealth to rebuild our economy using the recent lessons of the past number of years, good and bad. Why should we take this crap from EU chancers?
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