INTERNATIONAL BANKS, owed €435.6 million by Dublin specialist lender International Securities Trading Corporation (ISTC), will receive nine cent for every euro owed - three cent less than being offered under the proposed rescue plan - if the scheme is not accepted and the firm goes into liquidation.

The company's bank and trade creditors will decide next week whether to accept the rescue plan. If approved, it will pave the way for the sale of the company to British investment bank Collins Stewart for €5 million.

ISTC, which raised money in the capital markets to lend on to banks, has debts of €878 million, including €165 million raised from wealthy investors in 2005. Its assets are worth €57.8 million, leaving its banks and investors with total losses of €820 million.

Only the company's bank and trade creditors are receiving some of the money owed to them. Investors and bondholders in the company will lose all their money.

Among ISTC's assets are €18.4 million worth of "unencumbered assets" which would be worth €12.1 million in the event of the company's liquidation, according to the report of ISTC examiner John McStay. Mr McStay noted that the liquidation value of these assets was "a 'best efforts' estimate by the directors and is based on a recent precedent involving company assets".

This fall in value would reduce by 3 per cent the money available to creditors. The assets include cash of €36.8 million, from which the examiner will make a first payment to creditors amounting to seven cent of every euro owed.

ISTC ran aground last November when some of its investments fell in value due to the credit crunch.