{"id":556335,"date":"2026-06-27T03:31:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/556335\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T03:31:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:31:24","slug":"ptsb-chief-defends-bid-remarks-after-dail-claims-of-misleading-investors-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/556335\/","title":{"rendered":"PTSB chief defends bid remarks after D\u00e1il claims of \u2018misleading\u2019 investors \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

PTSB<\/a> chief executive Eamonn Crowley<\/a> has said he \u201cdid not intend to suggest\u201d last October, as the bank was put up for sale<\/a>, that there had been no interest in the Government\u2019s 57.5 per cent stake beforehand. <\/p>\n

Crowley said on a call with analysts on October 30th, the day the bank was officially put on the market, that he was not aware of the Government receiving any bid approach. <\/p>\n

Minister for Finance Simon Harris<\/a> confirmed to the D\u00e1il<\/a> on Thursday that New York private-equity firm Centerbridge had submitted a non-binding proposal in early September for the State\u2019s stake. It was rejected. Harris added that he couldn\u2019t account for why the chief executive said he was unaware of approaches, when questioned by Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> TD Pearse Doherty<\/a>, who claimed the chief executive appeared \u201cto mislead the investors\u201d on the call. <\/p>\n

\u201cI did not intend to suggest that there had been no interest in the Minister\u2019s shares or engagements with the Department at all over previous months in respect of their shareholding. In further answers on the same analyst call that day, I did state clearly that the company was aware of ongoing interest in the company more generally,\u201d Crowley said in a statement to The Irish Times in response to questions. <\/p>\n

He said his answer was intended to convey that the board\u2019s decision to launch a sale \u201cwas not made in response to an approach to the Government and that I was not aware of any approach that the department was willing to engage on or pursue\u201d. He added that he was also not aware of any approach within the meaning of the Irish takeover rules \u2013 where it needed to be made to the company. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to remember that the FSP [formal sale process] was widely marketed and that Centerbridge participated fully in it. The public and comprehensive nature of the FSP was intended to generate the highest deliverable price for the shareholders \u2013 and we believe that the FSP has achieved that.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Irish Times reported on April 17th<\/a>, three days after PTSB agreed to sell itself to Austrian banking group Bawag<\/a> for \u20ac1.62 billion \u2013 or \u20ac2.97 a share \u2013 that Centerbridge had arranged to meet officials from the Department of Finance<\/a> and PTSB. <\/p>\n

The Business Post subsequently reported in May that Centerbridge made a non-binding proposal in early September for its stake, at a discount to the bank\u2019s prevailing stock price of about \u20ac2.30. The Irish Times understands that the proposal amounted to \u20ac2.16 per share. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe department was of the view that the indicative proposal undervalued the Minister\u2019s stake in PTSB and informed PTSB of its decision to reject the proposal,\u201d Harris told the D\u00e1il. \u201cFollowing internal governance, the department advised Centerbridge that the proposal did not provide a basis for engagement … That was the only [offer] that I was aware of that took place in advance of the formal sale process.\u201d <\/p>\n

Commenting on Crowley, the Minister said: \u201cHe\u2019s someone I\u2019ve found to be an excellent CEO. He\u2019s done an excellent job.\u201d <\/p>\n

Harris noted that Centerbridge was one of the parties that took part in the open process. It ended up joining forces with fellow US investment firm Sixth Street Partners by early February, with the consortium and Bawag ending up as the only two parties left in the race when final bids were called on April 11th. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe department believes that the process was fair, was transparent, and offered the greatest opportunity to canvass broad interest from potential bidders,\u201d Harris told the D\u00e1il. \u201cThe formal sales process resulted in the board of PTSB recommending a cash offer from Bawag to shareholders.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Centerbridge and Sixth Street final offer on the April 11th deadline included an upfront \u20ac2.93 bid that was two cents off a bid from Bawag, according to sources. However, they said the consortium also offered the possibility of an additional payments totalling seven cents per share to PTSB shareholders over a two-year period. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, PTSB\u2019s financial adviser, Goldman Sachs<\/a>, was unable to assign any value to this contingent element of the bid, the sources said. That is because it was dependent on the consortium being able to extract a significant amount of excess capital from the bank, which would require Central Bank<\/a> approval and carried a high level of uncertainty. <\/p>\n

The Irish Times previously reported that the board informed the department on Sunday, April 12th that it was ready to unanimously recommend a \u20ac2.95-a-share offer from Bawag. However, the Austrian bank nudged it up two cents following engagement with Harris\u2019s officials that afternoon. <\/p>\n

Sources say Centerbridge and Sixth Street went back to Goldman the following afternoon \u2013 two days after the final deadline \u2013 indicating they were prepared to increase their cash offer to \u20ac2.96 a share, unaware that Bawag was already one cent per share higher and had secured the backing of PTSB\u2019s board and the Minister. The deal was announced on April 14th. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PTSB chief executive Eamonn Crowley has said he \u201cdid not intend to suggest\u201d last October, as the bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,632,4767,22779,237948,18,72144,19,17,9649,37657,44,47],"class_list":["post-556335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-central-bank","tag-dail-eireann","tag-department-of-finance","tag-eamonn-crowley","tag-eire","tag-goldman-sachs-group","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pearse-doherty","tag-ptsb","tag-simon-harris","tag-sinn-fein"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116819963745465734","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}