Aer Lingus among Irish sovereign wealth fund's COVID-19 investments

Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund’s domestic investments in 2020 were almost exclusively in businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including a E150m loan to IAG’s Irish airline Aer Lingus. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) was established in 2014 to invest in supporting economic activity and employment in Ireland. It was mandated last May to invest up to E2b directly in larger firms hit by the pandemic via equity, debt and hybrid instruments. It said on Monday that 90% of the E430m invested in Ireland in 2020 was for this purpose, mostly so-called “stabilisation investments”, including the three-year Aer Lingus loan and E40m committed to the Dublin Airport Authority. “It is a commercial investment, it’s not state aid,” Conor O’Kelly, the CE of the National Treasury Management Agency, which oversees ISIF, told a news conference in relation to the Aer Lingus loan. “Probably the reason that Aer Lingus would want liquidity from us is it’s possible that the banking system is going to find itself already over-exposed to the sector.”<br/>