Bondholders may sue BoI over £46m confiscation

Some 2,000 British pensioners set to lose bonds worth a total of £46m may revive legal action against the bank that issued them.

The Irish finance minister Michael Noonan announced last Wednesday that bondholders had a week to respond to a plan that would see the bonds wiped out as part of a €4.2bn (£3.6bn) capital raising for the Bank of Ireland (BoI). The deadline was 5:30pm last night. The pensioners hold permanent interest bearing shares (pibs), which payout 13.375% on face value every year. They were issued by the Bristol & West building society, which was taken over by the BoI in 1997. But a campaign organised by fixed income expert Mark Taber has called on the pensioners to complain to Noonan about his p...