AIB did its best to portray a softer image at its agm in Ballsbridge yesterday. Gone was the politburo-style platform, with board members looking down from on high at shareholders.
In its place was a set of tables and chairs on a low stage that looked like they’d come from Michael Parkinson’s 1970s chat show on the BBC.
Disgruntled shareholders were even allowed to walk up to the stage to interact with chairman Richard Pym and chief executive David Duffy without the intervention of a burly security man.
Temporary partitions were used to make the room more cosy, a good call in the circumstances. Exclude AIB staff, directors and various advisers and there must have been fewer than 100 shareholders at the meeting.
The anger and outrage at the bank’s demise post the financial crash is dissipating as each year passes, although there were a few with some fire in their belly.
Independent TD Shane Ross, never a man to refuse a microphone, had a lash at the bank and Pym. Ross called for shares in the bank to be suspended immediately as they are grossly overvalued.
There are more than half a trillion AIB shares in issue, all of them held by the State bar 0.2 per cent. AIB is valued at six times its net asset value when its peers are valued at about one times NAV. This anomaly will presumably be sorted out when the State and the bank get around to sorting out its capital structure.
In his opening statement, Pym said he couldn’t think “why a reasonable investor would think that this bank is worth six times its net assets”.
Ross also accused Pym, who will earn €365,000 as chairman of AIB, and others on the board of “milking” the company with their fees, and questioned why so few own any shares in the bank. Pym, who only took over as chairman on December 1st last, found those comments to be “pretty offensive . . . very offensive actually”. “I’ll leave you to reflect on your conscience,” Pym added. Something tells me Ross’s conscience rested easily last night.
Apologies sought
Ross left the meeting before the end, with Pym saying goodbye to him and asking again if he wanted to apologise. Ross barely glanced at the stage and kept moving towards the exit.
Former Fianna Fáil TD Ned O'Keeffe had a cut at the bank for the "blackguardly way" it sold an investment in a property fund called Belfry in the boom years, which has been a "disaster for investors".
No AIB agm would be complete without a contribution from Niall Murphy, who leapt to his feet before Pym could even open the meeting. Murphy's beef this time was was the quality of the minutes from last year, which he said didn't reflect the content. Murphy wanted a legal review of the minutes but was told by the top table they "accurately reflected the proceedings" and were in "compliance with company law".
Consumer advocate Brendan Burgess asked about the standard variable rate and the 1.1 per cent differential between certain rates north and south of the Border. Obviously the higher rate is being paid in the Republic.
Pym had earlier told the meeting the board “continues to consider” interest reductions but it was simplistic to think AIB was able to fund itself at the European Central Bank’s current rock-bottom rates. And its mortgage book was still “high-risk” with loss-making trackers and a high loan-to-value ratio of 90 per cent.
Mortgage arrears, another hot topic of late, also got an airing, with Duffy telling the meeting 11,000 solutions had been agreed with customers. Its owner-occupier arrears reduced by 22 per cent in 2014, Pym said.
There was no update for shareholders on its financial performance, and Pym would not comment on the identity of its new chief executive to succeed Duffy, who was variously described as "highly photogenic" and as having "stratospheric sex appeal". Yet the dogs in the street know Bernard Byrne, AIB's director of retail and business banking, has been chosen to succeed Duffy and is merely awaiting the green light from European regulators.
Afterwards, in a departure with the practice of recent years, the board mingled with shareholders over cocktail sausages and chicken strips. It’s all part of the new face of AIB – the bank that’s “backing doing”.
Twitter: @CiaranHancock1
