Don't sell bank yet, Ireland's PTSB tells government

By Padraic Halpin DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's permanent tsb (PTSB) must realise more value before the government could even consider a potential sale of its majority stake, the bank's CEO said on Wednesday. The government retains a 75 percent stake in the smallest of Ireland's three remaining domestically owned lenders after an initial share sale last year as it seeks to recover as much as it can from the euro zone's most expensive bank bailout. Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said last month that, while he supported PTSB's strategy, he could not discount the possibility that an opportunistic transaction in the best interests of the state could arise at any time. "If Mr. Noonan asked me today, I'd say don't do a deal because I'm leaving money on the table. There are organic opportunities in this organisation to grow intrinsic value," CEO Jeremy Masding told a new conference. "If I do that and someone comes in for us, then so be it. But I would only recommend a deal to the board if I felt that we were maximising the intrinsic value of the business and we are certainly not doing that." Masding said that with the turnaround in the bank not yet complete, it instead had to spend the next 12 to 18 months growing areas such as consumer finance, mortgages and fee income to make it as valuable as possible. He also pointed out that at 2.16 euros (£1.8), the bank's share price was less than half the 4.50 euros the government sold at in last year's initial public offering (IPO). The bank's shares were 4.5 percent higher at 1350 London time after it reported substantially higher first-half profit, driven by one-off items including provision writebacks and the sale of its shares in Visa Europe. PTSB, which last year became the last Irish bank to return to profit after the financial crisis, posted an underlying profit of 117 million euros, up from just 1 million euros a year ago, with over half resulting from write-backs. The bank said challenges remain due to lukewarm mortgage market growth, increasing regulatory costs and the uncertainty generated by the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union. While, unlike its rivals, PTSB no longer writes loans in the UK, Brexit has forced it to stall the sale of its mortgage business there and Masding said a protracted delay could push back plans to start paying a dividend again from 2018. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by David Goodman/Ruth Pitchford)