Hard times recently for Bank of Ireland, of which we own 15%:
- billion-euro bond paid out last week;
- £500,000,000 bond due on Monday next;
- €750,000,000 bond that it issued to itself in 2010 due next month;
- then the real doozy, a €2.1bn bond that was issued in 2006 and on which it has since (presumably) been paying a 'coupon' or interest, maturing in July. That means Bank of Ireland will have to find that €2.1bn or - more likely - borrow again by issuing another bond.
Not that Bank of Ireland are having it all their own way on the bonds front - far from it!
Next week also Irish Life & Permanent (one of ours, in its entirety) has a €1.25bn bond falling due. As with the Bank of Ireland bond above, this was a bond it issued to itself, on exactly the same day, falling due now on the same day - ah, such symmetry!
On April 30th AIB (another bank of our own) will pay out on a €1bn bond that it issued on Apr 30th 2006. Luckily for the holder of that bond, it's 'guaranteed' so it will be paid. So much for the famous statement of last June about separation of bank and sovereign debt, eh?
Anyway, enough of all that, here they are in all their glory.
Surely the comments of the former IMF official this week mean its a victory for the Ballyhea and Charleville campaign group.
ReplyDelete1." Bondholders could have been burnt."
2. "A sovereign default could have been managed."
Surely the ECB are now acting outside the law by not IMMEDIATELY writing off at least the bank debt (€70 billion).
This is a civilised society right?