ANGLO IRISH Bank has closed its office in Düsseldorf and will shut its office in Jersey tomorrow as the bank takes further steps to wind down operations.
The nationalised bank must also close its office in Vienna and sell its wealth-management business as part of the run-down of the bank under the terms of the bailout agreed with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The closure of the Vienna office is expected to take several more weeks as it was a larger operation that the Düsseldorf and Jersey offices. Deposits held in these overseas locations have been repaid.
The process to sell the wealth-management business is ongoing.
The office closures were part of an order secured by the Minister for Finance last February.
Fewer than 10 staff were employed in the Düsseldorf office which was opened in July 2008, while Anglo had three employees in Jersey where the bank opened a full branch in August 2007.
The closure of the overseas offices will bring the number of Anglo offices to nine down from 19 when the bank was at its biggest in 2008. They are being closed ahead of the bank’s planned merger with Irish Nationwide Building Society next month.
Both institutions are working towards a deadline of July 1st to complete their merger.
Anglo has put its $10.1 billion (€7 billion) US loan book up for sale and has appointed New York-based real estate broker Eastdil Secured to sell the property loans.
The loans are secured on 20 million sq ft of industrial property, 17 million sq ft of offices, 10 million sq ft of retail and about 14,000 hotel rooms. More than half the loans are based in the northeastern or the mid-Atlantic US states. A federal judge in New York has ordered Anglo to explain whether it has submitted a plan to merge with Irish Nationwide and outline details of the sale of US assets.
Judge Paul Gardephe asked the bank to provide an explanation on its plans in a court action taken by hedge fund Fir Tree Partners, which claims to be owed $200 million in bonds issued by the bank in the US. Fir Tree is seeking to block the sale of any of Anglo’s US assets and the transfer of any proceeds out of the country so that it can force the bank to pay the debt.
The Manhattan court gave Anglo until 5pm (New York time) yesterday to discuss whether it had submitted a plan to merge with Irish Nationwide and whether the sale of its remaining US-based assets were “imminent”.
