Cardinal and IL&P to battle for EBS

THE deadline for final bids to be submitted for the EBS Building Society passed yesterday, with Irish Life & Permanent and Cardinal Asset Management understood to be in the final shakeup for the business.

For months the two have consistently been named as the most likely to end up battling for control of the EBS.

Cardinal is believed to have also drawn up plans to bid for Irish Permanent if successful in acquiring EBS.

The consortium is said to have met with the NTMA, the Department of Finance and the Central Bank. EBS has 12% of the Irish mortgage market.

Four bidders were originally in contention — Irish Life & Permanent; the US buyout firm JC Flowers; British private equity firm Doughty Hanson; and the group led by the Dublin investment firm Cardinal.

Doughty Hanson, owners of TV3, and JC Flowers were previously ruled out as potential buyers for what is effectively the last building society left standing in the embattled financial services sector.

Due to EBS’s reliance on state funding it is now effectively state-owned.

Since the EU/IMF €85bn bailout, the capital requirements under the more stringent IMF rules has gone up to nearly €1 billion.

Cardinal has been chasing opportunities to buy banking assets since the crisis unfolded in 2008.

Led by Nick Corcoran and Nigel McDermott, it was initially part of the Irish-led Mallabraca consortium that made tentative efforts to secure a stake in Bank of Ireland during the early stages of the crisis in late 2008.

While discussions over a deal took place, it was never made clear if face-to -face talks with Bank of Ireland actually occurred.

Following the bailout the offer deadline was pushed out beyond the initial date of December 22, 2010, to allow EBS meet the higher capital targets insisted on by the EU.