By Eamon Quinn and Carolyn King
DUBLIN--The Irish government Tuesday said the completion of the
long-delayed sale of Irish Life Ltd. is a further sign that Ireland
is emerging from its deep debt crisis.
Great-West Lifeco Inc. (GWO.T) said it acquired Irish Life Group
Ltd. from the Irish government for 1.75 billion Canadian dollars
($1.74 billion), a move that will make it Ireland's largest
pensions provider with more than C$50 billion of assets under
management.
Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Irish tax payers will
see a return on the 1.3 billion euros ($1.73 billion) the
government pumped into Irish Life and "an additional dividend" of
EUR40 million, pending regulatory approval. The transaction shows
the troubled Irish economy is starting to attract a significant
number of investments, Mr. Noonan said.
However, the sale of Irish Life, the life insurance arms of
Irish Life & Permanent, will offset only part of the huge sums
the government was forced to pump into Irish Life & Permanent
to keep the financial firm from collapse.
Irish Life & Permanent was among six financial institutions
that required huge amounts of Irish government aid since the onset
of the country's financial crisis five years ago and the banking
unit, Permanent TSB, remains in government ownership
The sale was required under the terms of Ireland's EUR67.5
billion international bailout in late 2010, but the government was
forced to freeze its plans to sell the operations to Great-West
Life in late 2011, and eventually took Irish Life into public
ownership at a cost of 1.3 billion euros ($1.73 billion) in March
last year.
Analysts say Ireland is on course to emerge from the bailout and
resume full access to debt markets when the European Union and
International Monetary Fund have disbursed the last of the bailout
loans at the end of this year.
Write to Eamon Quinn at eamon.quinn@dowjones.co and Carolyn King
at carolyn.king@dowjones.com
