How is 2014 shaping up for Ulster Bank?
Ulster Bank has been in Ireland 178 years and we remain committed to the Irish market and to continuing our longstanding support of Irish companies. Ulster Bank has a clearly defined strategy - based on building a really good bank for our customers. We returned to profitability in Quarter 1 of this year and we are making strong progress towards becoming a simpler, more efficient and sustainable bank for our customers.

We are fully committed to supporting businesses and growth in the economy and reflecting that we’re open for business and have money to lend. In fact under our Ahead for Business Campaign, we have stated that we have €1.2 billion available to lend to companies across Ireland in 2014.

We have successfully completed a large number of financings in the past year. In working with Ulster Bank / RBS as a key banking partner, these customers benefit from dealing with a strong local clearing bank that understands their needs with the ability to deliver the full benefits of the international debt capital markets through RBS.

Which sectors are active or is the activity more broadly based?
The nature and extent of financing activity varies by market segment. The quoted Plc's and semi-states that our Large Corporate team look after, have been very successful over the last few years in diversifying their income streams internationally whilst deleveraging their balance sheets. This has left many of them well placed to undertake strategic acquisitions and invest in their existing operations both domestically and internationally.

Such success has been independently recognised with a number of Irish Corporates achieving new investment grade ratings allowing them to successfully access debt capital markets. Ulster Bank and RBS have assisted many of these companies, such as ESB, Smurfit Kappa and Kerry Group, by taking a lead role in successfully bringing these companies to the debt capital markets.

2014 has seen companies take advantage of the strong liquidity within the Debt Capital Markets to not only diversify their funding sources but to also extend the maturity profile of their core bank debt facilities whilst availing of lower funding costs. Ulster Bank has been able to support such activity, increasing its level of participation across syndicated and bilateral facilities. Confidence amongst these clients is high and as the year progresses we should see increased levels of M&A transactions taking place however with such a wall of liquidity, vendors expectations on price could dampen such activity.

In the mid-market what is driving recent financing activity?
In the mid-market, financing activity has reflected a combination of firms refinancing their facilities from banks that are exiting the market, those seeking to invest in their business or to complete M&A activity.

From a refinancing perspective Ulster Bank has been active and has led or participated in a number of notable transactions in recent months. These have included being Mandated Lead Arranger of the refinancing completed by Petrogas Global Limited, whilst we also supported the refinancing of TV3 and the recent financing completed by Topaz.

We are witnessing an increasing number of companies seeking funding to invest in their businesses after several years of preserving cash or paying down debt. The continuing economic recovery into 2014 is providing the necessary confidence for them to undertake such investments. In particular we have funded a number of capital investments including in the food processing and general manufacturing sectors, where the firms have strong international customers and markets.

From an M&A perspective, amongst a number of transactions that we completed, we were very pleased, as Sole Lender, to support the acquisition of Lily O’Briens by the NPRF backed Carlyle Cardinal Ireland SME Equity fund. The availability of such equity to Irish corporates is a positive and will help to underpin economic recovery and the further development of a diverse and enterprise based economy in Ireland.

Energy and Renewable Energy in particular is an area where Ulster Bank has a strong track record, what are the key trends you are seeing in that sector?
The Irish energy market is undergoing marked change, with large foreign players and investors acquiring projects from local developers. This will lead to significant financing opportunities in the coming years and we have a very strong pipeline of projects that we will support in the course of 2014. These include conventional wind energy projects as well as large scale biomass power plants.

Through combining our deep sector knowledge and our product range we have also been able to provide valuable support to clients operating in the wider energy sector. We provide innovative working capital and trade finance solutions to support the growth and development of their businesses in the areas of energy trading, outsourced management activities and project development in Ireland, the UK and European markets.

FDI, especially tech, is very topical at the moment? What role is Ulster Bank playing in this space?
We have a dedicated team focused on FDI which remains a key business area for us and we have long been a key player in the Multi-National and Foreign Direct Investment market in Ireland. We work closely with a range of partners to support the needs of foreign firms that are establishing themselves or expanding their operations in Ireland. These include introductions from our parent, RBS, as well as through our full membership of the IBOS (International Banking One Solution) Network.

In the Technology area, a key differentiator of Ulster Bank is our strong relationship with our 15 IBOS partner banks where we are able to provide the full range of local banking services to their clients as they invest in and establish their operations in Ireland. We participated in the 'Gateway-to-Europe' event again this year and that has yielded positive results for us and deepened our relationships across the intermediary space in the US, particularly in Silicon Valley.

We have also, in 2014, worked closely with IDA Ireland and in February hosted the first ever and very successful 'Meet your Neighbours' event in our offices for all of the Dublin city centre based IDA supported firms. This event was a great success and provided a unique and welcome networking opportunity for these firms.

Ireland continues to be a very important centre of activity for the Financial Services sector. Can you tell us about Ulster Bank's presence in this area?
Our financial sector specialist teams covering stockbrokers, insurance, lenders, funds and general financial services companies continue to expand their activities and are closely aligned to the equivalent teams in RBS to leverage the significant expertise within RBS across these sectors. Services provided include local and international cash management, transmission banking, foreign exchange, CREST facilities and resource management including bespoke multi-currency client money solutions.
We are also working with our colleagues in providing debt facilities to funds and private equity companies. Our penetration in the institutional market continues to improve and we expect the increased activity to continue over the course of the year.

Can you tell me if the markets side of your business is seeing as much activity?
We have been especially busy in markets over the last 12 months. One of the key drivers has been increased currency hedging as customers expand internationally and capitalise on improved export opportunities and economic conditions. We expect volumes will continue to improve and our market share to increase as a result of our zero payment charges initiative for standard FX transactions.

Another key factor driving activity has been the increased level of corporate draw-down activity which has allowed us to provide commensurate rate hedging for those clients seeking to capitalise on the low base rate environment. Ulster Bank and RBS are also market leaders in hedging Debt Capital Markets transactions and have acted as Market Hedge Co-ordinator on a number of recent deals.

Operationally we’ve been busy too, with the markets team working hard to ensure the transition to EMIR has been smooth and timely for our clients. We continue to provide ongoing transaction support and now offer delegated reporting through RBS under EMIR, which has been hugely beneficial for many of our clients.