Anglo Irish Bank posts record loss

Ireland's state-run Anglo Irish Bank reported a record first-half loss on Tuesday, hit by soaring bad debts, and revealed that the government had injected another 8.58 billion euros to prop it up. Anglo, nationalised early last year to save it from collapse, said in a results statement that it made a pre-tax loss of 8.2 billion euros (10.4 billion dollars) in January-June compared with the same part of 2009.
The record shortfall included a massive impairment charge of 4.8 billion euros, while the group also faced a 3.5-billion-euro loss on loans it sold at a discount to the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). An impairment charge acknowledges unexpected costs or losses, such as bad debts. The Irish government has meanwhile pumped another 8.58 billion euros into the troubled group, taking its total state support to 22.88 billion euros.