It is comedic, bordering on farcical, that this country will agonise over the disposal of the 25% stake in Aer Lingus – worth about a lousy €175m – whilst at the same time largely ignore sales of assets worth many multiples of this. Today, the British commercial property portal, CoStar.co.uk reports that AIB has sold €600m of assets in Poland. The Irish state owns 99.8% of AIB, so these disposals are of OUR assets.
The buyer appears to be a joint venture between two non-Irish companies, Peakside Capital and Partners Group. The purchase price appears to be €600m. What was the sales and marketing process, and was it adequate to maximise the sales price? What were the assets worth in AIB’s books at 30th June 2012? Did we make a profit or loss on the deal?
Who knows, who can tell.
There’s nothing on the Investor Relations section of AIB’s website confirming the sale today, though there was a press release without specified figures in April 2012. The Government/Department of Finance didn’t announce the sale, and there’s bugger- all reporting in the Irish mainstream media.
When the Sinn Fein finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty recently asked the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan about a schedule of assets for sale in Irish state-owned banks, he was practically told to get lost and that such information was confidential. It seems that political oversight will be reserved for the sale of the 25% stake in Aer Lingus.
Farcical.
NAMA Wine Lake 
The Irish Financial media, print and electronic are a joke. Mostly PR handouts from brokers, insurance companies banks and big advertisers. If I see Pat Farrell’s ernest face sprouting rubbish again I’ll eat my TV licence.
It took Vincent Browne to stop the nausiating three monthly circus reportage of the paternalist Troika patting us on the head like good little children for obeying Mrs. Merkel and the scheming nods and winks ECB. The rest of sheep media just passed on the good news. Your still getting screwed be happy!
Only for NWL and Sinn Fein we would be still getting the mushroom treatemnt.
Aer Lingus affects the jobs of about 4,000 employees, lots of them Irish, whereas Polish property portfolios do not. That is the root of the different treatment.
You are right of course that Irish journalism is often relatively substance-free. That even includes publications like the Phoenix which would be a good place for NWL to have a column. At the moment, the content of the Phoenix is basically irrelevant to Ireland’s economic crisis.
Peakside Capital and Partners Group.
It would be interesting know who owns both of these companies.
The asset sell off is another good scoop by NWL.
And I concur with the others here who say that Ireland’s MSM should be covering these stories as well as other state-owned asset sales.
One has to wonder why journalists are employed at all here. Why not employ one good IT guy to set up a press relaese upload box on rte.ie/irishtimes.com/independent.ie? It’d be a lot more efficent.
If you want to sell newspapers, publish a picture of Harry’s little willy – but don’t carry out any serious financial analysis or your sales will fall off the cliff. Pander to the masses. Caesar gave them circuses. Not much has changed since Roman times.
It is getting further and further into Narnia and narrow sectoral and self involved interests have taken over the driving. No one in their correct mind will say that the civil service and a bunch of teachers have the wherewithal to view this situation from the gods.
Who is asking about goals beyond those established by an ill man four years ago. Who is asking the ‘where is it we want to get’. At the moment the whole thing is riddled with the short-termisn of those professionally involved doing what they usually do. Which is to focus on short timelines.
Do you know Google? If you used it before writing scandalising posts, you could have found, that the assets were only under management and that the agreement was already arrived in April. It was just approved. But don’t hesitate, carry on, everybody is lying!
Take a 51% stake in the oil and gas fields. Charge them proper royalties. End of austerity. Keep the Euro and issue Punts as the domestic currency. Troika? Idiots who have no idea about economics, but then that of course is not the agenda. The agenda is working well for them – asset stripping EU wide. They have no intention of creating conditions conducive to growth. That does not suit the plan.
It’s an asset management business and AIB had a 9.87 percent stake in one fund and a 7.5 percent stake in the other so it didn’t sell 600m of loans, it sold 600m of assets under management.
@NC, Thanks for the clarification.. but why doesn’t the MSM report these things?
It was press released here, not sure about home. Will give you a buzz Monday.
@NC, Ahh Neil, promises, promises…… but Monday never comes. Are you buzzing the wrong guy? :-)
@WSTT, an old hack’s device. Buzz enough times – with a warning beforehand – and eventually, you might connect with the right tiger!