IRISH BANK Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, has hired investment bank UBS to advise on the options facing the lender on the future of corporate loans of less than €2 billion.

UBS was hired after a competitive tender process and will help IBRC decide whether there is an opportunity of selling some or all of these loans and assess the appetite for the corporate loans to be refinanced by other lenders.

The State-owned bank declined to comment on plans for the loans and which corporate customers will be subject to the loan review.

The Department of Finance directed queries to the bank, saying that it had no involvement in the public procurement process to hire the investment bankers.

The loans being assessed were cashflow-backed loans provided by Anglo to Irish and UK companies and exclude Anglo’s corporate loans to Cavan-based businessman Sean Quinn and his companies.

The investment bank will test the appetite within corporate banking markets to refinance the corporate debts of IBRC clients as part of plans to wind down the bank’s operations before 2020.

Not all of the bank’s corporate loans are being scrutinised in the review by the bank’s new advisers.

The bank must find ways of reducing its corporate loan book in line with the overall run-down of the bank without damaging the day-to-day operations of the performing companies it supports and their future growth plans.

Anglo provided corporate loans to glass-maker Ardagh, petrol station chain Topaz, The Racing Post newspaper and website and broadcaster TV3 and company Airtricity during the Celtic Tiger years.

The bank attempted to grow its corporate lending after David Drumm became chief executive in 2005 to diversify away from property lending, but it maintained too great an exposure to the property market, eventually leading to a €29 billion Government bailout following the property crash.