Noonan to park demands to burn Anglo bondholders

FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan has signalled that he will park demands to burn Anglo bondholders, due to be repaid about €750 million next month, and will instead concentrate on cutting the cost of €30bn worth of IOUs to the bank.

But while he was optimistic of saving up to €250m a year in interest payments on bailout loans, he warned that the slowdown in world growth could affect Ireland’s exports and make the budget more difficult next year.

While he said he would not give up on haircuts for the Anglo bondholders, he played down their value, saying: “the amount is not that big in terms of the overall burden for Ireland”. Economists reckon cutting them would mean a gain of about €2bn to the state.