Anglo Irish lose 17.6 b euros

 The amount is a record for an Irish company, surpassing the 12.7 billion euros the bank lost in 2009, and it nearly equals Ireland’s 2010 budget deficit of 18.75 billion euros ($25.6 billion). Anglo Irish took a loss of 11.5 billion euros on assets transferred to Ireland’s so-called bad bank, NAMA, and attributed an additional 7.8 billion euros to loss provisions on the rest of its loan book. Those losses were offset by an operating profit of 1.6 billion euros, the bank said.

Once the country’s third-largest bank, Anglo Irish was nationalised in early 2009. Thus far, it has required a capital injection of 29.3 billion euros from the Irish government, whose 2008 guarantee on bank liabilities left the country in need of a 67.5 billion euro rescue last autumn by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The bank’s preliminary results are a prelude to a more-detailed report due in March. Anglo Irish said its deposits had dropped to 11.1 billion euros in December from 27.2 billion euros at the end of 2009.

Depositors withdrew 40 billion euros from Irish banks in December, according to a report issued by the Irish central bank. In all, withdrawals from the 15 Irish retail lenders came to nearly 110 billion euros. Most of the withdrawals were made by non-Irish depositors.

The reticence of savers to keep money in Ireland’s troubled financial institutions has made them dependent on emergency funds from the European and Irish central banks.

As of December, Irish banks were being supported by 94 billion euros drawn on the European Central Bank, while the Central Bank of Ireland chipped in an additional 49 billion euros.