AIB Investors OK Bailout, Pelt Leaders With Eggs

SHAWN POGATCHNIK

DUBLIN (AP) — Investors in debt-hit Allied Irish Banks voted Wednesday to approve a euro3.5 billion ($4.75 billion) taxpayer bailout of Ireland's biggest bank at an emergency meeting — during which one livid shareholder pelted the rattled chairman with eggs.

Still sporting flecks of yolk on his jacket, AIB chairman Dermot Gleeson announced that shareholders had overwhelmingly backed the taxpayer bailout proposed by the government three months ago.

Gleeson said the aid to AIB — the biggest retail bank in Ireland with significant stakes in banks in Poland and the United States — would "provide support to the group's business, helping to preserve its viability as an independent financial institution." ...