Anglo Irish Bank nationalized

And the good news from our trustworthy friends in banking continues, on both sides of the Atlantic. From The Independent:The Irish government stepped in last night to take full ownership of Anglo Irish Bank to prevent the collapse of the country's third biggest lender, as nationalisation fears inc-reased throughout the banking sector.

The republic's government made its move to stop runs on the bank's dep-osits and shares that could have caused it to implode. Confidence in Anglo Irish has collapsed since the resignations of its chairman, Sean Fitzpatrick, and chief executive, David Drumm, last month after it revealed that Mr FitzPatrick had concealed €87m (£78m) of loans from the bank. Brian Lenihan, the finance minister, said: "The funding position of the bank has weakened and unacceptable practices that took place within it have caused serious reputational damage to the bank at a time when overall market sentiment to-wards it was negative."

If Anglo Irish had been declared insolvent, the Government would have been left responsible for about €100bn of liabilities after guaranteeing all deposits in Irish banks last year.