THE CHAIRMAN of Anglo Irish Bank, Donal O’Connor, has decided to step down and will be replaced by former Fine Gael politician Alan Dukes. Mr O’Connor, a former managing partner of accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, plans to leave the role in July.
The Government is expected to announce details of the change in the coming days. It is understood that Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan intends to appoint at least two and possibly three non-executive directors to the board of Anglo in the coming weeks.
In a separate development, Anglo yesterday issued legal action against former chairman Seán FitzPatrick in an effort to recover loans of €70 million. This is the second lawsuit taken by Anglo against a former senior executive. It follows the action against former chief executive David Drumm over unpaid loans of €8.3 million.
The departure of Mr O’Connor from Anglo will leave only Government-appointed directors on the board of the State-owned bank.
The board currently comprises Mr O’Connor, Mr Dukes, former Bank of Ireland chief executive Maurice Keane and Anglo’s chief executive Mike Aynsley.
Mr O’Connor was appointed a non-executive director on Anglo’s board in June 2008 by then chairman Mr FitzPatrick. The other non-executive directors resigned in the wake of the bank’s nationalisation in early 2009.
It is believed that Mr O’Connor told Mr Lenihan last December of his intention to step down as chairman.
He has held the post since Mr FitzPatrick resigned in December 2008 after it emerged that he had hidden his loans at Anglo over an eight-year period using borrowings from Irish Nationwide.
Mr Lenihan asked Mr O’Connor to stay on as fellow Anglo board member Frank Daly, the former Revenue Commissioners chairman, was becoming chairman of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama).
With a new management team in place – comprising six external executives – Mr O’Connor is understood to feel that the time is right for him to step down.
Mr O’Connor served as executive chairman of Anglo, steering it through the nationalisation in January 2009. He stood down from his executive role at the bank when Mr Aynsley was appointed at Anglo last September.
Mr Dukes, a former Fine Gael leader and finance minister, was appointed to the board of Anglo in December 2008 as a public interest director under the Government bank guarantee scheme.
Mr Dukes, who has other business interests, told The Irish Timeshe expected the role of chairman to consume about "two days a week" of his time.
Mr O’Connor’s decision to leave the bank comes in advance of the publication of a report into corporate governance at the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the State agency where Mr O’Connor was chairman and Mr FitzPatrick was a board member while both men were on the board of Anglo.