BoI reports pre-tax loss of €979m but sees share price recover

BANK of Ireland has reported an underlying pre-tax loss of €979 million for the first half of its financial year; but saw its share price recover strongly yesterday on the back of saying its loan losses shouldn’t deteriorate from its previous guidance, over the next three years.

Results for the bank — covering the six months to the end of September — also showed an 18% year-on-year fall in operating profit (before impairment charges) to €787m; a fall from 63.2c to 2.4c in basic earnings per share and an underlying loss per share of 96.6c compared to underlying earnings of 54.8c a year earlier.

The pre-tax loss of €979m (the bank posted a total loss of €7m for its last full year) was driven by a €1.8bn impairment charge to cover potential losses on “bad” loans.