NAMA AND PROPERTY:THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency (Nama) has recruited a team of senior managers to report to John Mulcahy, the agency's head of portfolio management.
Among the eight property experts recruited within the past two months is Alison Rohan, daughter of Ken Rohan, one of the wealthiest builders in the Republic and the owner of Charleville House in Enniskerry in Wicklow.
She joins Mr Mulcahy’s team from D2 Private, the property investment firm founded by Deirdre Foley and David Arnold.
Kevin Nowlan, who has been appointed a portfolio manager at the State bad bank, also has family connections in the industry. His father Bill Nowlan, a commentator on the market, controls the asset-management firm WK Nowlan. His brother Rod Nowlan works for Bannon Commercial.
Mr Nowlan worked as a managing director of his father’s firm after stints at Treasury Holdings and Anglo Irish Bank, where his clients included Treasury, Gannon Homes and Bovale Developments.
Another of Mr Mulcahy’s team with experience at Treasury is Mark Pollard, the company’s former development director. Treasury’s prolific borrowings have propelled the firm, which is owned by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett, into the Nama top 10, meaning its loans are in the first wave of transfers into the agency.
Three more Nama recruits, Hugh Linehan, Paul King and Mary Birmingham, come from the institutional side of the industry.
Mr Linehan managed Aviva’s €600 million-plus property investment portfolio, while Mr King, who is acting as a temporary consultant to the State agency, headed up Irish Life’s €1 billion property portfolio, the largest in the Republic prior to the creation of Nama.
Ms Birmingham, a former colleague of Mr King’s at Irish Life, recently worked as a project manager on the €2 billion Bray town centre scheme, which is awaiting a planning decision from Bord Pleanála.
Pizarro Developments, the company behind the massive project, is comprised of a group of well-known property developers including Paddy Kelly, another of Nama’s top 10 borrowers.
A source close to the project said the loans on the 33-acre site are likely to end up in Nama and it may take years before construction work commences as it is unlikely the agency will agree to stump up the sizeable funds that would be required under the existing development plans.
Another two recruits, Donal Kellegher and Michael Moriarty, are former employees of the Savills estate agency. Mr Kellegher headed up the property firm’s development land division, where he acted for Dublin Port in its sale of the Dublin Glass Bottle site for €412 million in 2006. The loans on that transaction are being transferred to Nama at an 87 per cent discount.
Mr Moriarty, who specialises in property syndicates, most recently worked for Goodbody Stockbrokers. He is expected to join Mr Mulcahy’s team next month as the transfer of an initial € 16 billion worth of loans nears completion.
Most of the new recruits have been drafted in as portfolio asset managers and all are reporting to former Jones Lang LaSalle chairman Mr Mulcahy. The team will eventually control €81 billion worth of assets and will wield enormous influence in the property market as investors queue up for potential Nama bargains.
According to one industry source, the elaborate courtship of Nama is already under way, with estate agents presenting their clients to Nama officials as “potential joint venture partners”. He said these investors “just want to set out their stall”. One source said: “A lot of people are holding off buying property now in the expectation they will pick up a better opportunity from Nama further down the line.”
