IRISH BANK Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, has received about €2 billion for the first $3.5 billion (€2.5 billion) of loans transferred to the three purchasers of its US loan book.

The bank did not name the buyers of the $9.2 billion US loan but they have previously been reported as US banks JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, and the Texas-based fund, Lone Star.

IBRC said that this marked the “start of a series of multiple closings with these buyers” which is expected to end in early December.

The bank said that the proceeds from the sale would allow it to repay a $1 billion senior unguaranteed bond which matures next Wednesday.

It will also reduce the bank’s total net borrowings, including funds drawn from the Central Bank’s emergency lending facility.

The portfolio is being sold for an estimated 80 per cent of face value, according to sources familiar with the transaction, which is one of the largest single loan portfolios to come onto the US market in recent years.

The bank said it would only comment on the outcome of the transaction once the sale of the three loan pools is concluded.

Mike Aynsley, chief executive of IBRC, said that the first transfer marked “a significant milestone” in the deleveraging and stabilising of the Irish banking sector.

Anglo’s loans in the US included the financing of the purchase of the Apthorp apartment block on the Upper West Side in New York, the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago and shops on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world.

The three winning bidders beat some of the largest US private equity firms to purchase one of the largest portfolios of loans to reach the American commercial property market in recent years.