Allied Irish Bank needs €1.5bn fillip

Allied Irish Banks Group is set to raise a further €1.5bn (£1.3bn) to shore up its finances, after turning to the Irish Government for €3.5bn of state aid in February. The group announced yesterday that despite agreeing the first capital injection, "market and public uncertainty about our capital adequacy has persisted". The bank warned: "Following discussions with the Minister of Finance and reflecting his desire to ensure that systemically important banks would remain adequately capitalised, even in stressed scenarios, we have decided to take further action to strengthen our capital position." Following due diligence and stress-test scenarios run at AIB Group, they have agreed with the government that the bank now needs to raise €5bn in total.

AIB, Ireland's largest bank by market capitalisation, intends to raise the additional funds by the end of this year, although has not decided on how best to set about the task. It said plans included potentially disposing of assets