Historic day as AIB ends listing on ISEQ

AIB ended its 44-year run as a listed entity on the main Irish Stock Exchange (ISEQ), yesterday, by falling a further 7% — or 2c — to 25c.

The bank, for so long one of the titans of the Irish stock market will, from today, be listed on Dublin’s small-cap exchange; the ESM. This will place it alongside smaller — but in many cases more profitable and arguably better-run — players like CPL Resources and Donegal Creameries. The move will also see the number of out-and-out banking stocks on the ISEQ slip to just two — Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P), both of whom also dipped in price yesterday.

AIB, however, was quick to point out that today’s switch to the smaller exchange “should not impact shareholders’ ability to buy or sell shares”.

Gone, too, with its main ISEQ listing is AIB’s secondary listings in London and New York.

In reality, though, all that is keeping the Government’s post-rescue stake in AIB from inevitably reaching at least 93%, and near total nationalisation, is the time it is taking to formally conclude the sale of the bank’s profitable Polish division (a matter which is still with Poland’s financial regulators) — itself, initially, a mechanism to try and avoid increased state ownership.

The bank’s market capitalisation has nose-dived from €21bn four years ago to around €260m, with its share price falling from €23 to just above that figure in cent.

The effective downgrading in market listing came as a necessary fall-out from the state upping its stake in AIB (technically from 18% to just under 50%, for the moment) prior to Christmas, on the back of it injecting another €3.7bn of capital.

Elsewhere, leading bookmaker Paddy Power was, last night, offering less-than-tempting odds of 20/1 on AIB returning to the main ISEQ before the end of the year and ‘evens’ on the bank regaining a main market listing any time within the next 10 years.