PTSB, in which the State owns a 57 per cent stake, has put itself up for sale.
Shares in the bank jumped 23.4 per cent on Thursday, pushing its market value up to €1.58 billion.
The bank has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to manage the process, it said in a statement. PTSB chief executive Eamonn Crowley told reporters on a call that he expected that the process would conclude in the first half of next year.
“The board of PTSB, with the support of its largest shareholder, the Minister for Finance of Ireland, Paschal Donohoe, has concluded that it is now in the best interests of the bank and its key stakeholders to commence a formal sale process with the intention of identifying a new long-term owner of the bank,” it said.
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A sale would compete the return to the private sector of the domestic banks that survived the 2008 financial crisis.
PTSB, by far the smallest of the three, has been dogged by low returns ever since, due to its scale – even after increasing its balance sheet by about 50 per cent between 2022 and 2023 as it acquired €6.8 billion of Ulster Bank loans – and the fact it has to hold higher levels of expensive capital relative to loans than its larger peers.
“We expected PTSB will require many years of investment and restructuring to rebalance the bank,” said Benjamin Toms, an analyst with RBC Capital in London. “We are therefore not surprised that the bank is up for sale.”
The bank received a €4 billion State bailout in 2011 and has so far repaid €2.8 billion. The total includes cash received from the sale of PTSB’s former sister company Irish Life, share sales, redemption of bailout bonds, guarantee fees and interest payments.
The State’s remaining stake was worth €900 million as of the end of trading in Dublin.
Mr Crowley told reporters on the call that the decision to put the bank up for sale has not been triggered by any approaches. He said he bank was open to all types of bid interest. He declined to comment on the prospect of a new owner ultimately cutting branches or jobs.
“PTSB has made great progress in building a strong competitive franchise in the Irish retail banking market as evidenced by its third quarter of 2025 trading update released today,” said Mr Donohoe. “With increased investor interest in European banks, this presents the State with the opportunity to exit its last remaining shareholding in an Irish bank after 17 years.”
PTSB reported on Thursday that its gross loans rose by 4 per cent on the year to €22.4 billion at the end of September, with new mortgage lending up 64 per cent to €2.1 billion.
However, net interest income declined by 6 per cent for the first nine months of the year, driven by the knock-on effect of lower European Central Bank rates.
“The State’s investment in PTSB was made during the financial crisis to safeguard the stability of the banking system and protect depositors. A sale of the State’s investment would be consistent with the objective of recovering taxpayer funds that were used to rescue the Irish banks and deploying these to more productive purposes,” the Minister said.
“The State has and continues to be very supportive of PTSB, and the Government believes that it is in the long-term interests of PTSB and citizens in general that the bank be returned to full private ownership.”
Bank of Ireland returned to full private ownership in 2022, when the government of the day sold its remaining shares. The State sold its final shares in AIB in June.
