Danske Bank's Irish business has cost shareholders 34 billion kroner (€4.57 billion), Danish financial daily Borsenreported earlier this week, citing a confidential document obtained by the newspaper and written by Danske Bank unit Danske Markets.

The bank’s share price would be 58 per cent higher now had the lender not bought National Irish Bank and Northern Bank in 2004, Borsen said, citing the analysis.

Danske Bank does not expect loan losses at its Irish unit to improve until next year as Ireland’s housing market is taking longer to recover than the lender had estimated.

“We currently don’t see any concrete signs of improvement in the property market despite the fact that the Irish economy looks to be picking up,” said Thomas Borgen, head of Danske’s international banking activities. “We still expect continued high write-downs in the second half of 2011 . . . Ireland has been, and is, very demanding for us.” - (Bloomberg)