Fitch Affirms Anglo Irish Bank's Ratings, Outlook Still Stable

Business Wire, Sept 1, 2005

LONDON -- Fitch Ratings, the international rating agency, has today affirmed Dublin-based Anglo Irish Bank's (Anglo) ratings at long-term 'A', Short-term 'F1', Individual 'B', and Support '3'. The Outlook remains Stable.

The Long-term, Short-term, and Individual ratings reflect Anglo's consistently strong performance, good asset quality and an extremely low cost/income ratio. They also reflect capitalisation that has a fairly high proportion of preference shares and hybrids. The Support rating reflects the moderate probability of support from the Irish authorities should it ever be required.

Anglo is the fourth largest Irish-controlled private sector bank in the Republic of Ireland, with a domestic market share in both deposits and loans of around 7.9% and approximately 18% of mid-sized commercial lending. Anglo's core business is the provision of specialised services to high net worth individuals, professionals and medium-sized corporates in Ireland and the UK, a significant amount of which is secured on real estate. In 1995, Anglo started to diversify into wealth management. In addition to six branches in Ireland and five locations the UK, it also has a presence in Austria, Germany, Isle of Man, Switzerland and the USA.

Note to Editors: Fitch Ratings' Support and Individual Ratings for Banks

Fitch's Individual ratings assess how a bank would be viewed if it were entirely independent and could not rely on external support. Its Support ratings deal with the question of whether a bank would receive support from its owners or from the state if it were to get into difficulty. These ratings are not debt ratings but rather, respectively, an assessment of the intrinsic strength of a bank and of any level of outside support that may, or may not, be available to it.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.