The chairman of the Irish Nationwide building society expects that a trade sale will be agreed this year. Michael Walsh told the society's annual general meeting that a sale would unlock value for the building society's stakeholders, share members, borrowing members, management and staff.

"We expect the process to commence shortly and the board is hopeful that a sale will be agreed this year with all the formal documentation, consents and resolutions concluded soon thereafter," he said.

The Building Societies (Amendment) Act, 2006, which came into effect in August 2006, allows a third party to own 100 per cent of a demutualised building society and so permits Irish Nationwide to convert into a company and be sold to a single purchaser.

"The principal beneficiaries of your society's success will be the members when your society demutualises and realises the value for the benefit of all concerned," said Mr Walsh.

"We can only do this to maximum effect if we have the full support of everybody. Any attempt to frustrate the process or to damage your society should be summarily rejected. The whole process must be managed in a prudent, informed and orderly manner in order to maximise the value . . ."

Mr Walsh told members at the agm that profits at Irish Nationwide rose every year for the past 36 years and that in the past 10 years the society increased its profits and the underlying value seven-fold.

In 2006, pretax profits rose by 34 per cent from €177 million to €237 million, while profit after tax was up by 32 per cent from €140 million to €185 million.

Irish Nationwide advanced €4,961 million during 2006 compared with €3,592 million in the previous year, a rise of 38 per cent. Last year, its loan book stood at €10,410 million, up 37 per cent on 2005. Customer accounts rose by 15 per cent to €6,603 million.

The 2006 results reflected the "exceptional strength" of the building society, said Mr Walsh. Irish Nationwide's ability to expand its business was due to the strength of its balance sheet and its strong capital position, together with prudent and innovative lending policies, he said.

"We have once again achieved record balance sheet growth, record lending, record deposits and record profits despite strong competition in the financial services sector and further erosion of margins in all sectors of the market," he said.

"To give a picture of growth over the past 10 years, the net book worth representing shareholders' interest has increased from €163 million in 1996 to €1,232 million in 2006. Assets have increased from €1.4 billion to €14.6 billion in the same period and pretax profits from €31 million to €237 million."

Mr Walsh said Irish Nationwide had continually outperformed other institutions, some of them many times its size.