State to sell 3% of its stake in Permanent TSB

Reuters

The Department of Finance has said it will sell 3 per cent of Permanent TSB, the first sale of shares in the lender by the State since 2015.

The Government along with British lender NatWest will each sell 3 per cent in the group to dispose of a combined 33 million shares to institutional investors via an accelerated book building process, they said in parallel statements.

The Department of Finance will continue to hold about 59.4 per cent of PTSB, the country's third-largest mortgage lender, after the share sale, while NatWest will retain 13.6 per cent.

PTSB, the smallest of the three domestically owned banks that survived the financial crash a decade ago, was effectively nationalised in 2011.

The Government cut its 99.2 per cent shareholding to 75 per cent in a share offer in 2015 but has not sold any shares in the bank since.

NatWest took a near 17 per cent share in the bank as part of PTSB’s recent acquisition of around €7.6 billion of loans and assets from Ulster Bank, which is exiting the Irish market. That further diluted the Government's holding to 62 per cent.