AIB pulls bond over unfavourable market conditions

Bad timing was behind AIB’s decision to pull a 10-year covered bond scheduled for yesterday.

On Tuesday, AIB announced it had mandated a number of banks, including Dublin-based Merrion Capital, to look at issuing what was believed to be a €500m 10-year covered bond. However, the bond did not materialise.

According to one market source initial speculation suggested that the failure to issue the bond was caused by a technical glitch. “The market hasn’t changed much over the past few days. The backdrop is reasonably benign for bank stocks. Moreover, the ECB has been quite active in the secondary [asset backed securities] market over the past few weeks.”