Permanent TSB chairman to retire from board in March

Permanent TSB said its chairman Alan Cook, who was appointed to the role at the height of the financial crisis in 2011, will retire from the bank's board at the end of his six-year term in March.

Mr Cook's appointment was announced in April 2011, within weeks of the Central Bank ordering the group, then called Irish Life & Permanent, to raise €4 billion to shore up its then loss-making banking unit following stress tests of the country's banks as the State was under an international bailout. He replaced long-standing chairman Gillian Bowler.

The group was subsequently taken over by the State and the life assurance business sold on to Canada’s Great-West Lifeco, while the bank returned to the main Irish stock market last year when the Government sold down its stake, leaving it with a 75 per cent holding.

"Alan has worked tirelessly to deal with the horrendous impact of the financial crash on taxpayers, on customers and on the group itself," chief executive Jeremy Masding said.