{"id":668477,"date":"2026-10-29T03:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T03:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668477\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T03:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T03:52:12","slug":"ptsb-attacks-axis-in-court-over-effort-to-disrupt-bawags-e1-6bn-takeover-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668477\/","title":{"rendered":"PTSB attacks Axis in court over effort to disrupt Bawag\u2019s \u20ac1.6bn takeover \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

PTSB<\/a> has in court attacked the approach of advisory group Axis, cofounded by former Bank of Scotland Ireland chief Mark Duffy, to try to disrupt the lender\u2019s takeover by Austrian banking group Bawag<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Axis Capital is \u201cnowhere near a position to make an offer\u201d to rival the \u20ac1.6 billion offer from Bawag, the High Court has heard.<\/p>\n

There was \u201cno certainty\u2019 that the firm\u2019s offer of \u20ac3.20 a share, higher than Bawag\u2019s \u20ac2.97 a share proposal, \u201ccan actually be made\u201d, Kelley Smith, counsel for PTSB, told Judge Michael Quinn on the second day of legal proceedings to approve the proposed acquisition of the bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cAxis is a \u20ac100 micro-company,\u201d she said, pointing to financial accounts for the year ended May 2026 that \u201cshowed \u20ac100 on its balance sheet\u201d. Axis was cofounded by Duffy and Lutz Hartmann, a Frankfurt-based international lawyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company has no track record in M&A [mergers and acquisitions] transactions and, we would say, lacks the resources to actually implement an offer. We now see that, actually, it is not an offerer but it intends to be some form of arranger,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAxis have waxed and waned on what they\u2019d like the court to do,\u201d Smith continued, and \u201cthe court should discourage such approaches\u201d that \u201cseek to disrupt\u201d proceedings. <\/p>\n

Duffy asked for \u201cone minute\u201d of Judge Quinn\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has struck me since yesterday, particularly over the past few minutes, is that everyone is talking about the Bawag offer. There is at least one other offer \u2013 that comes from Axis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The offer \u201cis not speculative\u201d and is supported by \u201cone of the most esteemed investment banks in the world. We have a credible route to funding\u201d, Duffy said. \u201cAnd we are credible people, we have done many transactions in Ireland and globally\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want access to information and limited time to consider this information,\u201d he said in reference to the announcement last week that Axis Capital would seek an adjournment of up to six weeks.<\/p>\n

Earlier in proceedings, the court heard from Des Carville, head of the shareholding and financial advisory division at the Department of Finance, on what led to Minister for Finance Simon Harris<\/a> using the State\u2019s 57.5 per cent stake in PTSB to support Bawag\u2019s offer. <\/p>\n

Share price was \u201cof utmost importance\u201d, Carville said, as it was \u201cour primary driver to maximise value for the Irish taxpayer\u201d when considering the State\u2019s exit of its stake in the Irish banking sector.<\/p>\n

Piotr Skoczylas, the managing director of Scotchstone Capital, which owns a less than 1 per cent stake in PTSB and is one of three shareholders objecting to the deal, asked Carville a series of questions on what formed \u201cpart of the Minister\u2019s overall assessment to support the Bawag\u2019s recommended cash offer\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Small PTSB shareholders \u2018paying for Minister\u2019s exit\u2019 in \u20ac1.6bn takeover deal, court hearsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

These included commercial matters, such as the bank\u2019s branch footprint, and the Minister\u2019s views of Bawag\u2019s approach to the deal \u2013 for example, meeting trade union representatives.<\/p>\n

Carville said these issues were not the Minister\u2019s primary considerations. \u201cPrice was the first and foremost consideration,\u201d he said. \u201cOther points are secondary points; they flow from the transaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a consequence of the offer by Bawag [that] the proposed transaction afforded the Minister the opportunity to exit his last remaining stake\u201d in the bank, Carville said. \u201cIt was not a major part\u201d of the Minister\u2019s decision, he added, but \u201ca small part of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have resisted pressure from banks to sell shares\u201d at times when the price on offer was not optimal, he said, and \u201cit has taken us 13 years\u201d to get to a point of satisfaction with a PTSB takeover bid. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf price was not important to us, I would not have spent 13 years of my time working on this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PTSB has in court attacked the approach of advisory group Axis, cofounded by former Bank of Scotland Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[69261,72,73,61,60,8580,70],"class_list":["post-668477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bawag","tag-business","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ptsb","tag-simon-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668477","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=668477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}