Anglo's €17bn loss on black Thursday for banks

Cormac Murphy

ANGLO Irish Bank unveiled the biggest losses in Irish corporate history at €17.7bn on what was another Black Thursday for the banking sector.

Anglo made the announcement on the day the results of the Central Bank's stress tests are being announced.

The bank has broken its own record for incurring the worst ever losses in Irish corporate history, saying 2010 was another exceptionally difficult period.

The loss figure includes impairment charges of €7.8bn and a loss of €11.5bn on disposal of assets to the National Asset Management Agency.

Anglo said the impairment charges included €2.6bn relating to NAMA loans.

The scandal-hit lender, which was run into the ground by former chairman Sean FitzPatrick, has cost taxpayers €29.3bn in recapitalisation costs.

CEO Mike Annesley said the bank believes 2010 was the last year of these types of extraordinary losses.

In a significant statement, he said: "We don't expect that the taxpayer is going to need to put any more funds into the bank."

However, if the property market continued to fall that would have an impact on the future value of the loans, he added.

Anglo is winding down and it is tasked with managing the repayment of some €35bn of loans still on its books.

In the past few weeks, its deposit book has been transferred to AIB.

Mr Annesley said that the bank had gone from 1,800 staff when the bank was nationalised to 800 and back to 1,300.

He told RTE's Morning Ireland that the bank expects to be somewhere around the 1,000 mark by the end of 2011.

Anglo said its net interest income came to €0.7bn for the year.

Total expenses amounted to €353m, compared to €309m in 2009.

During the year, customers' deposits declined from €27.2bn to €11.1bn by the end of December 2010.

Borrowings from banks increased to €46.6bn and included €45bn from central banks compared with €23.7bn in 2009.

Anglo said its total assets by the end of the year were €72.2bn, down from €85.2bn in 2009.

Its impaired loans totalled €17.6bn.

The bank said conditions in wholesale funding markets remain extremely difficult and it continues to rely on Government and monetary authority support mechanisms.

Anglo, nationalised in January 2009, has so far received promises of State assistance totalling €29.3bn.

It has also appointed consultants to value its US loan book and is continuing to pursue former chairman Sean FitzPatrick through bankruptcy proceedings.

The bank gave an update in an annual report of what former directors of the bank continue to owe the lender, including Lar Bradshaw, David Drumm and William McAteer.

comurphy@herald.ie