M&T profits up by €109m

AIB’s chances of offloading its 23% stake in US bank, M&T were done no harm yesterday, with the New York-based company announcing a near $140 million (€109m) year-on-year increase in second quarter profits.

AIB is hopeful of selling its interest in M&T — an asset which could fetch up to €2bn for the bank — as part of its efforts to reach its €7.4bn end-of-year post-NAMA recapitalisation targets.

M&T has a market capitalisation of over $10bn. It generated net income/ profit of $188.8m for the three months to the end of June, according to the latest figures published yesterday. This compared to $51.2m for the same quarter last year and was up from $150.9m for the first quarter of this year.