![Piotr Skoczylas, managing director of Scotchstone Capital, which owns a stake in PTSB, told the High Court: 'I am paying, as a tiny shareholder, for the Minister’s exit [from PTSB] – he should be paying for his own exit.' Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/resizer/v2/6KKUCYNAP5FWTJR6HI4YMLRK34.JPG?auth=fcf22fcb079535eb51c080c2dccea1ceb262b6dfb6e367e2c920085dd3fbd614&smart=true&width=1024&height=683)
Minister for Finance Simon Harris was “driven by the State’s commitment to exit the investment”, not by the desire to achieve the best possible price for shareholders, when he voted in favour of the proposed sale of PTSB to Austrian banking group Bawag in July, the High Court has heard.
There was “an issue of special interest” when the Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader supported the €1.6 billion offer, a PTSB minority shareholder, Piotr Skoczylas, told Judge Michael Quinn.
He is one of four shareholders objecting to the proposed acquisition at a High Court sanctioning hearing today.
Quoting the Coalition’s commitment in the Programme for Government of “normalising”, or leaving, the Irish domestic banking market, Skoczylas said, “This is not a State secret, it’s known to all its citizens.
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“I don’t blame the Government for wanting to exit this investment, because they are not bankers – they are the Irish State. The Irish State is not in the position to manage Irish banks.”
Skoczylas is the managing director of Scotchstone Capital, which owns a stake in PTSB of less than 1 per cent. He is opposing the proposed deal to sell the bank – Ireland’s third-largest domestic lender, in which the State currently holds a 57.5 per cent stake – to Bawag.
“I am paying, as a tiny shareholder, for the Minister’s exit – he should be paying for his own exit,” Skoczylas said, later pointing to a “turnout of 30 per cent” at the emergency general meeting in July to vote on the bid.
Lyndon MacCann, the barrister acting for the Minister for Finance, responded to Skoczylas’s oral submission by saying: “It’s easy to make an assertion, it’s different to supply evidence...
“There is no evidence that the Government policy resulted in the State accepting a price that it ought to not have accepted,” he said, and it is “not a matter of controversy that the State has had a policy for some time to exit the banking sector”.
[ The Irish Times view on the PTSB sale: stick with the planOpens in new window ]
Kelley Smith, counsel for PTSB, said she was at “something of a loss when trying to understand” much of Skoczylas’s criticism of the agreement.
She said the company met its statutory requirements by placing advertisements in The Irish Times, Irish Examiner and The Financial Times for takeover bids. “Nothing has been identified to us as a form of deficiency in the information provided to shareholders,” Smith said.
The court heard earlier in proceedings that Axis Capital, the corporate advisory firm cofounded by former banker Mark Duffy, would not seek an adjournment of legal proceedings to delay the sale.
The company had indicated last week it would do so in order to allow time for a “large global investment manager” it had been introduced to by an investment bank to conduct “its confirmatory due diligence” before it submits a rival bid to buy the bank.
“It is my understanding this morning they are not pursuing that, but would like the court to consider what they have to say,” Smith told the court.
Duffy, a former chief executive of Bank of Scotland Ireland, appeared in the courtroom alongside Lutz Hartmann, a Frankfurt-based international lawyer representing Axis Capital.
“We have followed directors and have submitted correspondence to you,” Hartmann said to Judge Quinn. “It is not our intention [to act] in any way from what the rules permit.”
He said that although Axis is unable to request an adjournment because it is not a party to the proceedings, it does “wish to present facts” supporting its desire for one.
