O’Brien prepared to invest in ‘cleaned-up’ Bank of Ireland

Telecommunications and media billionaire Denis O’Brien said he would invest in Bank of Ireland Plc, as it has “cleaned up its balance sheet.”

“Bank of Ireland has taken the medicine,” said Mr O’Brien in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Maryam Namezee yesterday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

While Irish banks have written down their assets to market values and been recapitalised, “other banks around Europe haven’t done a mark-to-market,” he said.