Bidders for EBS ‘may buy and merge lenders’

JC FLOWERS & Co and three other bidders for Ireland’s EBS Building Society may buy and merge several lenders to create a new competitor to the country’s biggest banks, two people familiar with the situation said.

JC Flowers, the US buyout firm, Dublin-based Cardinal Asset Management, backed by US private equity firm Carlyle Group, and Doughty Hanson & Co are vying with Irish Life & Permanent to take control of EBS, said the people who declined to be identified because the accord is not complete.

Each of the bidders said in talks that they plan to merge EBS, the country’s biggest customer-owned lender, with other building societies. That would create a new rival to Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks, the country’s biggest lenders. Irish Life & Permanent chief executive Kevin Murphy has said the sale of ICS, and Irish Nationwide Building Society as well as EBS may be “strategic opportunities”.