First Active has finally hit the right note

If you wait around long enough, even First Active is likely to have a good week. And this was it.

Having hit another all-time low at one stage on Tuesday of €1.70 as investors continued to doubt the ability of the bank to make it in the big league, it recovered to hit €2.03 on Wednesday and held on to most of those gains for the rest of the week.

The reason? Largely, it was down to the sale by First Active of the majority of its British business, which, if nothing else, showed the group was finally developing a strategy and that largely revolved around maximising its Irish operations rather than the more competitive UK market where it did not have, and was unlikely to acquire, sufficient scale.

The bank has also attracted the former group treasurer of Irish Permanent, Michael Torpey, who sees opportunity for growth in First Active's treasury operations and brings a fresh outlook to the board table.