permanent tsb welcomes restructuring plan

Irish Life & Permanent Group Holdings plc is the listed holding company of Irish Life & Permanent plc which trades under the name permanent tsb.

Headline: permanent tsb bank welcomes support for restructuring plan

Thursday, 26 April 2012. permanent tsb bank has welcomed today's announcement from the Irish Government regarding the way forward for the bank.

The strategic plan which was the subject of discussions this week will now be formalised into a Restructuring Plan in line with State Aid rules and will be submitted to the European Commission before the end of June 2012. While that process is underway, work will continue on implementing the restructuring.

The plan will create a viable, customer focused and competitive retail bank capable of resuming normal lending into the Irish market. This will be achieved by carving out a viable bank from the current permanent tsb business.

At the same time the Group will create a separate Asset Management Unit [AMU] to manage those businesses and assets which are not core to the new bank. A wide range of assets and loans will be included in this Unit which will allow the bank to manage them in a more concentrated and professional manner than currently.

Finally the plan will see the UK business [CHL] continue as a stand alone business unit within the Group.

In a joint statement the Chairman and Chief Executive of permanent tsb bank, Alan Cook and Jeremy Masding respectively, said that they welcomed the progress made today. They said; "This decision follows the most intensive and detailed review ever undertaken of the options for permanent tsb bank. No option was excluded from consideration including the outright closure of the bank."

"However, we believe that there is a compelling case that a viable, competitive bank can be created from the current permanent tsb by separating out the different elements of that bank into distinct business units and that permanent tsb itself is the most suitable vehicle for managing that process in the short to medium term."

Chief Executive Jeremy Masding said; "It's clear that within the current business, there is the potential to develop a customer focused, profitable and competitive player in the Irish market. This also offers the best route for the taxpayer to recover some of the very substantial amounts of money which they have invested in the business."

Jeremy Masding said that the goal was to "create a best-in-class retail bank which can serve its customers, its shareholders and the wider community and which can begin to repay Irish taxpayers for the support they have given the institution in recent years."

The plan envisages that the three business units will have loan books of approximately:

Permanent tsb bank €14.2bn

AMU €12.5bn

CHL €7.1bn

Ciarán Long

Company Secretary

Further Information:

Ray Gordon

Gordon MRM

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