Allied Irish Bank Group
Irish Central Bank Said to Approve Duffy as Allied Irish CEO
Issued : 15 November 2011
Bloomberg
Ireland's central bank approved the appointment of David Duffy as chief executive officer of government-owned Allied Irish Banks Plc, ending a year-long search, two people with knowledge of the discussions said.
Allied Irish nominated the former executive at South Africa's Standard Bank Group Ltd. for the role last month, subject to central bank and government approval, said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private. The appointment still needs government approval, they said. Allied Irish, the nation's second-biggest bank by assets, received a 21 billion-euro ($28 billion) bailout following the collapse of the country's real-estate bubble.
Duffy, 50, would be Allied Irish's fourth leader in two years after Eugene Sheehy stepped down in 2009. The struggle to find a permanent successor has made it harder for the government to reduce its stake in the lender, according to Colm Ryan, co- head of fixed income at Goodbody Stockbrokers. The Dublin-based bank has also failed to detail where it will make the 2,000 job cuts it announced seven months ago, he added.
"AIB is in a state of paralysis," Larry Broderick, secretary general of the Irish Bank Officials' Association labor union, said in a telephone interview. "It's an extraordinary set of circumstances that the bank's executive chairman announced in April that it was cutting over 2,000 jobs and we're now in November with still no sight of the plan."
Salary Limit
Duffy, an Irish national and graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, left Standard Bank in June. He was most recently head of strategic projects at its Standard Merchant Bank unit in Singapore, according to Janice Garraway, a spokeswoman for the lender. Prior to that, he was the London-based head of the lender's corporate and investment bank operations overseas, she said. Duffy is also a former head of wholesale banking at ING Groep NV and director of European human resources at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The Sunday Business Post identified Duffy as a potential CEO on Oct. 16. Duffy didn't immediately return an e-mail seeking comment. Central Bank spokeswoman Nicola Faulkner, Finance Ministry spokesman Eoin Dorgan and Allied Irish spokesman Ronan Sheridan each declined to comment.
Duffy may be subject to the government's 500,000-euro limit on salaries paid to executives at state-backed lenders. While Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said he sees "no good reason" to breach the salary limit in this case, Hodgkinson said on July 28 suggested that a long-term incentive plan could secure the right person.
Allied Irish has been run by Interim Executive Chairman David Hodgkinson since Colm Doherty departed as group managing director 12 months ago. He replaced Sheehy, who retired as CEO in November 2009.
Joe Brennan
