Anglo Irish Bank recorded strong trading in the first quarter of its financial year and the bank's board is "very confident" of continued growth over coming months, its chairman, Seán FitzPatrick, said yesterday.
Addressing Anglo's agm in Dublin, Mr FitzPatrick said the bank's focus this year would be on organic growth in its three main markets: the Republic, the UK and the US. "Your board is very confident," Mr FitzPatrick told shareholders.
"The scale of opportunities available to the bank remains very significant and I believe the bank will take full advantage of these opportunities," he added.
Mr FitzPatrick pointed particularly to new business opportunities in regional Britain. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Anglo's chief executive, David Drumm, said growth in the three months to the end of December had been "spread right across the three geographies".
He said the bank was placing an "emphasis on all three markets to more or less the same degree".
Last August, Mr Drumm said Anglo expected its UK business to become significantly bigger than its Irish operations within three to five years. The bank has had a presence in London for more than 20 years and opened in Manchester and Glasgow at the start of this decade. A new office in Edinburgh is under consideration at the moment, with Anglo also looking at Leeds.
Referring to last week's €416 million share placing, Mr Drumm said the bank's policy had always been to "pre-fund" its growth. He declined to outline how exactly the placing proceeds would be used.
Shares in Anglo gained 15 cent yesterday to close at €13.10. Mr Drumm welcomed the "effective upgrade" the shares had received after analysts had left their forecasts unchanged in the wake of the placing.
