Market unfazed by bank's woes

AIB's woes had little impact on its share price yesterday, with the bank outperforming its peers on the Dublin market.

Shareholders appeared far more concerned with what the bank's top executives had to say to institutional investors and analysts at a special conference in London than with who did what and when in relation to foreign exchange transaction charges between 1996 and last month.

The bank's shares traded in lower volumes than usual yesterday, particularly in the morning.

However, activity picked up following the conclusion of the investor conference with the share price notching up the bulk of its gains in afternoon trading in both Dublin and London.

AIB closed at €12.30 in Dublin, a gain of 30 cents or 2.5 per cent in the session. In London, the shares were 26 cents stronger at the end of the day on €12.24.

In New York, the company's ADRs were trading just above their Thursday's end-session price of $29 as Irish markets closed.

AIB was the top performer among Dublin's financial stocks, with Bank of Ireland rising just 1.1 per cent and the smaller banks losing ground.

Dealers said that the furore over foreign exchange charges in AIB had little impact.

"In the context of AIB's figures, the €14 million said to have been unfairly charged to customers here is insignificant," said one.

"You have to ask whether people are going to sell their shares over this news and the truth is they will not. People are more concerned about what [chief executive, Mr] Michael Buckley has to say about growth prospects in Poland or wherever."

Mr Stuart Draper, head of equity research at Dolmen Butler Briscoe, said: "The simple truth is that stock prices are driven by the buying and selling of shares and not by people angry at some alleged rip-off of customers.

"There are a lot of things the market gets hung up on that never get a profile in the public domain and, equally, there are things that excite the media and politicians greatly which have little impact on the market," he said.

"Fortunately for AIB, this event falls into the latter category."