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LESS THAN 7% of Nama’s €17.5 billion in fire-sale assets have gone to Irish buyers – and the bad bank’s boss has admitted there’s nothing he can do if offshore vulture funds wanted to pull apart local businesses.
National Asset Management Agency (Nama) CEO Brendan McDonagh today told a Oireachtas Finance Committee meeting that only 6.9% of its total asset sales, which are made up of both loans and properties, had gone to domestic buyers.
He said US buyers had snapped up nearly 90% of the massive portfolio and it was probably true that the “vast majority” of those purchases had gone to private-equity funds.
“The majority of the (money) coming in to buy assets from Nama is US based,” he said.
“There are some big individuals who are buying assets in their own name, and they are obviously very rich, but the majority are funds.”
He said that 3.5% of the total portfolio went to German buyers and 1.2% was bought with UK funds.
About two thirds of Nama’s total portfolio was for assets in Ireland, with the majority of the remainder in the UK – primarily in Northern Ireland.
Buyers could ‘asset strip’ Irish businesses
Under questioning from Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath, who asked what Nama would do if a purchaser planned to “asset strip” an existing Irish business that was linked to one of the loans, McDonagh said the agency’s job was to get the best returns it could on sales.
“We haven’t seen any buyer to date that has told us they wanted to buy a business and engage in asset stripping,” he said.
“We have to take the commercial view that once we sell the assets whatever the buyer is going to do with it is up to him because he’s paid for it.”
Several major overseas private-equity firms, including US-based Blackstone and Cerberus Capital Management, have bought up big packages of Nama-owned debts.
A profit within three or four years
In its policy statement for next year, Nama bosses said the stronger property market meant it was likely to wind up earlier than expected – possibly by late 2017.
The bad bank has forecast it would at least break even on the billions in taxpayer funds that had been sunk into it to buy up loans from ailing lenders during the financial crisis.
Today, when pushed to put a figure on its final performance, McDonagh said he was expecting a profit of ”somewhat less than €500 million” after it shut down all its operations.
In a separate statement, Nama said it had now repaid half of the €30.2 billion in senior debt it had issued to buy up loans and that it was on track to pay back 80% of the debt by 2016.
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Was 15C when I was heading to work at 3am this morning… mild is putting it lightly!
@Kieran Menon: Putting it mildly. :-)
Met some Ukrainians in Poland a few weeks ago and they really need a mild winter. Elderly grandparents minding their toddlers and only on hour electricity per day.
@thomas molloy: Ah Goodman pretending you care. Tell me how many hours a day of electricity do the Palestinian people have per day? Do they not need a mild winter as well?
@Kevvy kerrr: Trump will do nothing. He’s already proven a bluffer. He said he’d end it once elected. What has the done?
The slaughter in Ukraine and Gaza will continue. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
@Kevvy kerrr: Russia needs to remove its forces from Ukrainian territory, it’s nothing more than thievery and a land grab by Putin. I see the North Koreans fighting in Kursk ain’t fairing too well either.
@Ger Whelan: You pretend to care yourself. You only wave Palestinians around to avoid addressing a fair point. You’ve never mentioned the Congolese, Sudanese, Yemenese, Syrian, or Kurdish people as part of your own policy of mindless whataboutery and contrarianism. These are the people who’ve been forgotten by the world. Hundreds of thousands dead, dying, starving, and exiled around the world. There’s no easy sloganeering, Internet clout, or Jews involved, though. I’m sure the Palestinians appreciate you using them a mudflap to deflect for the results of Putins’ invasion.
@honey badger: I imagine that Ger, being a decent person, will condemn any and all genocides and war crimes, as I do and you, very notably, don’t.
One of the main differences between the Israeli barbarism and that in the Congo etc. is that nobody comes on here and defends the Congolese perpetrators, like you do with the Israeli government and IDF.
An Israeli view: ‘decades of dispossession and oppression of Palestinians, a policy to maintain Jewish supremacy between the river and the sea, entire Palestinian communities wiped out, gradual ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands killed, blanket impunity, apartheid – all these are hard facts, backed by repeated reports of journalists, diplomats, UN experts and human rights organisations.’
@honey badger: Ah look at our residents Zonest Shrill. Funny how you don’t have any issue with Thomas ignoring all the other conflicts you mentioned in your comment. Why is it ok for him to just mention Ukraine and ignore the rest but you get butt hurt when I mention the Palestinians? Also where have I “deflected” from Putin’s invasion? It’s a brutal invasion that must stop. Just like Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza must stop, something you’re not interested in.
@Ger Whelan: ***Zionist shrill *** FU you auto correct
@Brendan O’Brien: Thank you for so eloquently illustrating my point. It’s genuinely appreciated. Smh.
@Ger Whelan: Thomas didn’t mention them because he was discussing Ukraine. You are a simple contrarian, I don’t expect you to understand the difference but would hope you’d reflect on how your own kneejerk whataboutism to Palestine isn’t a valid reply to Putins invasion and it’s consequences for ordinary Ukrainians.
@honey badger: You don’t have a point. All you have is a perverse indifference, at best, to genocide when the ethnic group that’s suffering is not to your liking.
@honey badger: @Brendan O’Brien: @ Ger Whelan well tonight that god it’s them instead of you….. to paraphrase my long departed old man, there’ll be no whataboutery in this house! Merry Christmas all
@honey badger: Thomas had no reason to mention Ukraine at all though he had? Funny how it’s ok with people like you to make every article about Ukraine and then get butt hurt when Gaza is also mentioned. There is no whatabtouism about Gaza it’s been brutally invaded just like Ukraine is. But you support the invasion of Gaza. You can mention Putin all you like I’ve no support for him. If there was any justice I’m the world he’d be sharing a Prison cell with Netenyahu. Wouldn’t you agree both should answer for their illegal invasions and war crimes?
@Kevin Kerr: ol’ granny used say …”everyone’s an expert on the barstool at closing time”. Luckily weather is so mild over the festive season…..I have a half dozen ( very reluctant) enlisted participants for the Christmas morning sea swim tomorrow morning. Same to you, HAPPY CHRISTMAS everyone
@thomas molloy: The left are very selective about whom they bestow their empathy and compassion!
@Brendan O’Brien: Again, your own determination to laminate my words with your own hysterical misinterpretation is your own business. You do, however, continue to prove my original point. Thank you.
@Brendan O’Brien: Citing that left-wing bigoted rag again!
@honey badger: You don’t appear to know what ‘hysterical’ means. You want to have your cake and eat it by consistently defending the perpetrators of genocide while being irked when you’re criticised for this. It won’t wash.
Do you have any comment on the quote from Hagai El-Ad that I give above? No, of course you don’t.
@Brian Hunt: And the right spread their h@te equally.
@thomas molloy: Jesus I didnt know the brain could come up with such real life events all from sniffing glue too much
@thomas molloy: total bs . Most of the country is unaffected business as usual. Many Ukrainians here are working remotely from jobs in Ukraine while driving around uninsured with free accommodation and welfare. Total joke
Thats great thank god no snow
Fine by me. Not lighting the fire each day is great news…. (yeah thats right,… I like a fire on cold nights… stuff you green party).
First week in January snow and wind expected, Ventrysky.com has the forcast. Happy Christmas Everyone.
We can all dream of a white Christmas like Mr Bing Crosbie
Plenty of snow here in Bulgaria great skiing weather
@barry williams: Bully for you!
@Brian Hunt: Bulgaria? Toilet
A fierce mild Christmas.
So there has to be someone or some group complaining about this mild Christmas weather? It’s Ireland after all.
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