The Government has decided not to go ahead with the sale of the EBS Building Society to a consortium led by Dublin-based investment group Cardinal Capital.
A statement from the National Treasury Management Agency said the sale process had been ended after a decision by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.
The NTMA said that, having evaluated the proposal at length, it was decided that the bid was 'not sufficiently commercially attractive to the State to merit continuing
with the sale process'.
Cardinal, which was the preferred bidder, expressed 'extreme disappointment' at the outcome. As well as Cardinal, the consortium also included the US-based Carlyle Group and US private equity group WL Ross & Co.
Cardinal said it had submitted a proposal to recapitalise the EBS and inject more than €600m into the institution, adding that its plan would have minimised the cost to the taxpayer.
Nick Corcoran, Cardinal Capital Director, said the consortium which was hoping to buy EBS ‘had international experience which was second to none’.
He said he was ‘disappointed’ that talks about a takeover of EBS had been terminated.
He added he did not believe the State was in a position to do a transaction with international capital.
Mr Corcoran added that the process had been ‘incomplete and unsatisfactory’.
He said the Irish authorities were now coming round to the view that the losses faced by the banks would be in line with what the consortium had been predicting for some months.
He said he would be happy to offer the State the benefit of the analysis work undertaken by consortium.
