"You want to take decisive action." Japan Japanese lenders were forced to write off more than $1trn (€809bn) in a bad-loan crisis that spanned the 14 years to 2006. In the 1980s, Japan's banks loaned billions of dollars to real estate and construction companies to buy and build rapidly appreciating properties in Japan and abroad. The property bubble burst in 1989. Allied Irish plans to sell its stakes in M&T Bank in the US and Poland's Bank Zachodni WBK and its UK unit, consisting of a British business bank and its Northern Irish First Trust Bank, to help raise the €7.4bn capital requirement set by the Regulator. "My understanding is there's lots of interest in those assets irrespective of the current market situation," he said. "Exactly what happens on asset sales, and other things may change the exact mix of ownership, but there is a very clear deadline to get to the targets." Analysts largely estimate AIB will be able to generate in excess of €4.5bn from the sale of the three foreign assets.