Shares in Bank of Ireland plummeted almost 9% yesterday on the back of Canadian insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings selling half of its 5.8% stake.

Representatives of two of the five investment firms which bought into Bank of Ireland last summer have taken seats on its board.

The State’s holding in Bank of Ireland has dropped to just more than 15% after €1bn investment by a Canadian investment firm.

Dublin: Reports over the weekend suggest that Bank of Ireland has entered exclusive talks with one of its new investors — US property firm Kennedy Wilson — to sell it its €1.5bn British loan book.

BANK of Ireland (BoI) shareholders have unanimously approved a €1.12 billion investment in the bank by a number of private investors, which reduces the state’s share holding to 15.1%.

AGGRESSIVE spending cuts will make Ireland the first European nation to recover from the sovereign debt crisis, said billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.

US BILLIONAIRE investor Wilbur Ross has said he will look at other Irish-based investment opportunities, after his company took a near-10% stake in Bank of Ireland.

BANK of Ireland said the state will reduce its shareholding to 15.1% after the lender’s rights offering this week, making it the only one of the country’s six largest lenders to escape Government control.

Bank of Ireland has released details of the private investors which came forward earlier in the week to buy a substantial stake in the bank.

THE EBS Building Society has been taken off the market, with the Department of Finance deciding that the main offer on the table for the lender wasn’t sufficient.

WL Ross & Co chief executive Wilbur Ross said his investor group remains in the bidding for the EBS, even as it is in talks with the Government about new capital targets for the country’s fifth-largest lender.

Dublin: Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P) and a consortium of private equity investors, led by Dublin-based house Cardinal Capital, have been confirmed as the final two bidders who will battle it out for control of the EBS Building Society, which is currently under state control.

IRISH Life & Permanent, the country’s biggest life assurer and mortgage lender, is in talks to hire four banks, including Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, to underwrite a rights offering, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

IRISH banks could come under pressure to be more forgiving with mortgage holders in difficulty if a bid by a US billionaire for EBS is successful.

Richard Branson’s Virgin is planning to inject up to £1.5 billion into crisis-hit Northern Rock as part of a possible rescue deal for the bank, reports said today.