Bank of Ireland in talks over UK loans
DUBLIN: Bank of Ireland is in exclusive talks with one of its new investors, US real estate firm Kennedy Wilson, to sell around 1.5 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) of British loan assets, a source familiar with the process said on Sunday.
Under the terms of Ireland's EU/IMF bailout, the country's banks must get rid of some 73 billion euros of assets by 2013 and Bank of Ireland's deleveraging target accounts for almost half of that.
The bank has agreed to sell a 1.4 billion euro US commercial real estate loan book to Wells Fargo & Co , a source close to the deal told Reuters last month.
A spokeswoman for Bank of Ireland said the lender would not comment on the British loan book talks but that it was making good progress on loan books that were up for sale and would update the market when it had something to say.
The discussions with California-based Kennedy Wilson do not include any assets in Northern Ireland, the source told Reuters on Sunday.
Together with Canadian investment company Fairfax Financial Holdings, New York buyout firm WL Ross & Co. and rival investment firms Fidelity Investments and The Capital Group, Kennedy Wilson bought a 34.9 percent stake in the bank for 1.1 billion euros in July.
Copyright Reuters, 2011
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