<div><p>Shareholders in Ireland's Allied Irish Bank on Wednesday approved the group's participation in a state-funded "bad bank" to buy high-risk bank property loans.</p><p>Under the arrangement, AIB will sell assets to the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) worth 24 billion euros (34 billion dollars).</p><p>They are to be purchased with a 30 percent discount, with AIB receiving 17 billion euros from the NAMA.</p><p>Ireland's banks have been ravaged by the global financial crisis, a domestic property market meltdown and a deep recession.</p><p>In response, the NAMA program is to buy toxic bank property loans, which soured during the country's recession, worth a total book value of 77 billion euros.</p><p>The agency will use taxpayers' money to buy the loans at a discount.</p><p>The NAMA is also expected to buy loans worth 16 billion euros from the Bank of Ireland as well as 28 billion euros' worth of risky assets from Anglo Irish Bank, which was nationalised last January.</p><p>With the discounts, the state should pay an overall total of 54 billion euros for the assets.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=65916790&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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