NEW INBS CHIEF BY END OF MONTH? - A direct answer to a direct question from a shareholder, and straight talking from an auditor at the Irish Nationwide AGM yesterday gave us the biggest news of the day - that the building society had been warned about reputational risk to do with the short-term loans that the building society arranged for Anglo's chairman Sean FitzPatrick over a number of years.
Over eight years Fitzpatrick moved loans he held at Anglo to INBS each September to keep them off Anglo's year-end balance sheets.
KPMG said that at a private meeting in February 2008 two board members were warned of the risk. He said the Financial Regulator knew of the transactions.
RTE was excluded from a private briefing that the chairman, Danny Kitchen, gave to three newspaper journalists in advance of the annual general meeting.
But Geoff Percival, business journalist at the Irish Examiner, was there and said Mr Kitchen had told them that there were five or six candidates, and there could be a new chief executive of the building society at the end of the month.
Mr Kitchen said the Government pay cap would not be a problem, as the candidates had been aware of it before their interviews. The chairman had also said the pay cap was not the reason for his not taking the job, saying he did not want to work full-time anymore.
On the possibility of a sale of the building society, Mr Kitchen said this was 'years away', adding that Irish Nationwide had to stabilise its business. Mr Kitchen had also said that there were no talks on plans for a 'super-mutual' with other institutions, but he would not rule anything in or out.
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BANKS STILL HOLDING BACK, SAYS ISME - Danny Kitchen also said that getting Irish Nationwide back on track would mean going back to basics and gradually lending more to home-owners. But he said Irish Nationwide had no interest in lending to small businesses.
Mark Fielding of ISME said this attitude was in line with that of other banks' chief executives. Mr Fielding said it would be interesting to see if small shareholders in AIB would be asking about lending to small businesses at the bank's AGM today.
He said an ISME survey had shown that 58% of small firms were refused credit by their banks in the last three months, up from 48% at the time of the last survey in February and around 24% last summer. Mr Fielding described the refusal rate as 'shocking'.
Mr Fielding said it was time for the Government to get involved and insist on a resumption of credit lines to small and medium-sized businesses.
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CURRENCIES - The euro is worth just over $1.37 and 89.47p sterling.
