ANGLO IRISH BANK BEATING THE CREDIT CRUNCH - Anglo Irish Bank has posted reported profits before tax of €667m, a 16% increase. Underlying earnings per share rose by 15% to 69.7 cent. Those increases are despite a share price that plunged by 23% around St Patrick's Day in March.
Anglo Irish Bank's CEO David Drumm says the two key themes from this morning's figures is the extent of the profitability of the bank and its strong balance sheet, given the current credit crunch crisis. He says the bank has a balance sheet of €100 billion for the first time and its access to funding remains strong. He says the bank's lending is funded through its natural customer flows across Ireland, the UK, the US and Europe. Mr Drumm says this shows a degree of independence in the bank's ability to get money in the challenging markets that exist today.
Mr Drumm says the bank remains extremely liquid in terms of its balance sheet with €28 billion of spare liquidity. He says the effect of the current credit crunch is that banks all over the world have to 'cut their cloth a little bit'. However, he says the flip side of this is the 'incredible' opportunities for an 'old-fashioned relationship banker' like Anglo that now exist. A lot of the bank's competitors in recent years were Wall Street types and they have now disappeared because of the credit crunch. 'We now have that market back to ourselves,' he states.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Irish exploration company Providence has announced a major deal this morning. It has bought oil fields in the US Gulf of Mexico from Triangle Oil and Gas for a total of $67.5m. The deal will triple Providence's production and comprises interests in eight producing fields and two development sites.
*** Oil prices continue to hover around the $122 a barrel mark. Prices have doubled in the last 12 months, and Goldman Sachs is now forecasting that they could eventually reach $200 a barrel.
*** There was a big surge in Tullow Oil's share price yesterday here and in London when it announced that one of the wells it is drilling off Ghana has a lot more oil than first thought. Tullow was the star performer in London, its share price closing up 25%.
*** In a trading update ahead of its AGM in Dublin today, CRH has warned that its goal of achieving another year of profit and earnings growth is more challenging. It blames this on the continuing weakness of the dollar and weaker trends in a number of its markets - including Ireland, Spain and the US. It says that overall profitability in the traditionally less significant months from January to April is currently running behind the very strong performance of the four month period the same time last year.
*** On the currency markets, the Euro is trading at $1.54 and 78.75 pence sterling.
