Role of former Nama board member in Project Eagle questioned

The former Nama board member at the centre of the row over the sale of its Project Eagle loans to US firm Cerberus last year for €1.3 billion is businessman Frank Cushnahan.

Mr Cushnahan’s role was questioned at yesterday’s Oireachtas committee hearing, where Sinn Féin deputy Mary Lou McDonald referred to indications of conflicts of interest. Nama chairman Frank Daly said he was not happy about the claims relating to Mr Cushnahan, but denied he had any access to sensitive Nama information.

Mr Cushnahan resigned from Nama’s Northern Ireland advisory board in October 2013, shortly before having contacts with one of the Project Eagle bidders, US company Pimco. He also had links with a number of the property development companies whose liabilities were sold in the auction.

He was a shareholder in a property group controlled by Belfast businessman Gareth Graham, who is now locked in a legal battle with Cerberus. Mr Cushnahan had been chairman of the developer’s family’s bookmakers and held 5 per cent of Mr Graham’s four property companies. While his lawyers say Mr Cushnahan ended his involvement with the Graham group in 2008, the developer maintains that he still holds 5 per cent of the companies involved. It has also emerged that while Mr Cushnahan was on the Nama board, he held detailed talks with PBN, the company controlled by high-profile developer Paddy Kearney.

Resignation

Those talks are understood to have taken place over a period after PBN’s loans were transferred to the agency in 2010. Ian Coulter, whose resignation as managing partner of Belfast law firm Tughans, originally sparked the controversy, attended those meetings.

Tughans was PBN’s legal adviser. Mr Cushnahan used Tughans’ offices in Marlborough House, Belfast, while he was on the Nama board. Mr Cushnahan also worked as corporate adviser to another big Nama debtor Lagan Developments. That predated his appointment to the agency’s board, but continued in after his appointment. His lawyers have said that he declared this interest to Nama.

Last July, Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh said that it did not discuss individual debtors or their finances with the external members of its advisory board, Mr Cushnahan and Brian Rowntree.

Mr Cushnahan was well connected. He is a former chairman of Belfast Harbour Commissioners and was close to Northern Ireland Executive then first minister Peter Robinson, whose DUP colleague, former minister for finance and personnel, Sammy Wilson recommended Mr Cushnahan for the Nama role to then finance minister Brian Lenihan in 2009.