Donohoe faces headwinds on AIB shares

• Published date: 30 June 2022

And institutional investors were left with a wink and a nod that Donohoe would soon come to them with more shares, with AIB's then chief executive Bernard Byrne forecasting that most of the bank could be in private hands by the end of the decade

Blame Brexit, a wobble in global equity markets in late 2018, muted Irish loan growth in recent times, or COVID-19. But the job of shifting more shares in AIB has only become harder in the intervening years. The stock ended last year down more than 50 per cent from its €4.40 IPO price.

While Dublin's Iseq has slumped by almost 25 per cent so far this year in line with a sell-off across global equities, Irish banking stocks have been among the winners in a rising interest rates environment. As of last Friday, AIB's shares were up 20 per cent from the end of 2021.

Donohoe sought in January to get the ball rolling again on lowering the State's AIB stake by drip feeding stock into the market - following a similar strategy employed at Bank of Ireland since mid-2021. In order to accelerate the process he moved this week to sell a 5 per cent block on the market, lowering...