AIB limbers up for stock market listing within the next 12 months

State policy makes investors edgy

Bernard Byrne, chief executive, Mark Bourke, chief financial officer, and David OCallaghan, company secretary, AIB, at last weeks agm Picture: Maura Hickey

The crowd was a little thinner than in previous years. The security presence was not as visible.

The days of widespread anger at the banks is long since over. And the 100 or so shareholders who turned up at AIB’s annual general meeting in the RDS last week have accepted for years that – with the state owning 99.9 per cent of the bank – their presence is merely a formality.

But what ...