{"id":482106,"date":"2026-06-04T04:56:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482106\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:56:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:56:21","slug":"ulster-bank-leaves-more-than-two-thirds-of-bailout-unpaid-as-dividends-reach-e5-25bn-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482106\/","title":{"rendered":"Ulster Bank leaves more than two-thirds of bailout unpaid as dividends reach \u20ac5.25bn \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The company that contains the remains of Ulster Bank<\/a> paid a \u20ac165 million dividend to its British parent, NatWest<\/a>, earlier this year, bringing the total recovered from the former lender\u2019s bailout of its Irish unit to \u20ac5.25 billion. <\/p>\n

The disclosure was contained in the latest annual financial statement of the company, Ulydien, filed in recent days with the Companies Registration Office<\/a> (CRO). <\/p>\n

Deducting the dividend from Ulydien\u2019s net assets, as of the end of December, the net position of the balance sheet has subsequently fallen below \u20ac150 million \u2013 offering limited scope for NatWest to recoup much more cash from the Irish company as it heads towards wind-up. <\/p>\n

This suggests that NatWest, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), is on track to recover less than a third of Ulster Bank\u2019s \u00a315 billion (\u20ac17.3 billion) parental rescue during the financial crisis. <\/p>\n

By contrast, Irish taxpayers are set to end up recouping \u20ac30.7 billion from the State\u2019s three surviving banks \u2013 on a cash-in, cash-out basis \u2013 following their combined \u20ac29.3 billion in bailouts. This assumes that the recently agreed sale of 57.5 per cent Government-owned PTSB goes through on current terms. <\/p>\n

The taxpayer recovery has been significantly boosted by a surge in Irish bank valuations since Ulster Bank and KBC Bank Ireland announced five years ago that they were winding down their business in the Republic. The remaining lenders have since taken over most of the exiting banks\u2019 loans and customers \u2013 and enjoyed the benefits of a spike in interest rates globally. <\/p>\n

Ulster Bank was renamed Ulydien last June as the bank handed back its licence to the Central Bank after 165 years operating in what is now the Republic. It had paid \u20ac3.5 billion of dividends to its parent between 2016 and 2019, following up with a further \u20ac1.1 billion in 2023 and \u20ac485 million in 2024. <\/p>\n

Ulster Bank\u2019s rescue bill equated to a third of the total UK government\u2019s \u00a345 billion 2008 bailout of RBS. UK chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves sold that state\u2019s remaining shares in NatWest last year, delivering a total recovery of \u00a335 billion. The \u00a310 billion gap almost equates to the expected final shortfall on Ulster Bank. <\/p>\n

Ulydien reported a \u20ac53 million net loss in 2025, down from a \u20ac66 million shortfall for the previous year. Total staff numbers fell to 35 as of December from 100 a year earlier. It had about 2,800 employees in February 2021, when the decision was taken to quit the market. <\/p>\n

It had total assets of \u20ac361 million in December, mainly comprising amounts due from other companies within the NatWest group. Net assets amounted to \u20ac313 million. <\/p>\n

Ulydien tapped \u20ac56 million from provisions for customer remediation for \u201clegacy issues\u201d in 2025, known to include refunds of overcharged interest on mortgages<\/a>. This has left a pot of \u20ac7 million that the company expects to be largely utilised this year. <\/p>\n

The company is currently led by managing director Philip Duff. Former chief executive Jane Howard, who had led Ulster Bank from 2018, returned to the UK last July to become chief executive of NatWest\u2019s RBS International division. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company that contains the remains of Ulster Bank paid a \u20ac165 million dividend to its British parent,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,4505,89022,61,60,141557,207559],"class_list":["post-482106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-central-bank","tag-companies-registration-office","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-natwest","tag-ulster-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}