Nama on target to return €3.5bn surplus by time it winds down

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) expects to return a surplus of €3.5 billion to the exchequer by the time it completes its work in 2020 or 2021.

An update from the agency on Thursday shows it has generated €44 billion from its operations since it was established in 2009, largely from asset and loan sales as well as rental receipts from properties controlled by debtors and receivers. Some €3.3 billion in cash was generated last year, according to Nama.

Its remaining portfolio of assets had a carrying value of €2.3 billion at the end of last year.

Nama was given the task in 2015 of delivering 20,000 houses and apartments by 2020 under a plan to help the State deal with the housing crisis.

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The agency said it has provided funding for 9,700 residential units since 2014, with an additional 3,000 under construction or having been approved. Nama said planning permission has also been granted for another 6,400 units on sites that it manages.

Direct delivery

In addition to Nama’s programme of direct delivery, it is estimated that more than 3,400 units have been delivered on sites for which the agency had funded planning permission, legal costs, holding costs or enabling works, but in which it is no longer involved.

The agency said it has delivered 2,475 social housing units since 2010, providing homes for an estimated 8,000 people. Nama has spent about €350 million in remediating, completing and purchasing properties for social housing use.

At the end of 2018 it is salutary to recall the difficulties our country faced nine years ago

Nama said it has just four unfinished “ghost” estates in its portfolio now, down from 33 in 2010.

Nama also reported “major progress” made on sites within the Dublin dockhands, where it is involved in projects to deliver millions of sq ft of office and other commercial space under a fast-track Strategic Development Zone designation.

Commercial space

Of some 4.2 million sq ft of commercial space envisaged in 2014, construction is complete on almost 1 million sq ft.

The agency has redeemed more than €500 million of subordinated debt. It said it expects that the remaining €1.06 billion of debt will be redeemed by March 2020 at the latest.

Nama had completed the redemption of €30.2 billion of senior Government bonds in 2017. These were used originally to buy loans almost a decade ago.

"At the end of 2018 it is salutary to recall the difficulties our country faced nine years ago when Nama started its work at the end of 2009. The country has recovered significantly in the intervening period and it is encouraging for all who work in Nama to recognise that, with many others, we played a real part in that recovery," Nama chairman Frank Daly said.