DEVELOPER LOANS:ABOUT €4 BILLION in large development loans now remains to be transferred to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) after AIB yesterday said it had moved another €1.1 billion worth of loans to the agency. This represented the final tranche of €19.6 billion worth of loans transferred to the agency by AIB.
The AIB loans were moved to Nama last week and carried a discount of 60 per cent.
The transfer did not include any of the development loans below €20 million that are due to be moved to Nama under the terms of Ireland’s bailout with the EU and the IMF.
About €16 billion worth of smaller loans were due to be transferred by AIB and Bank of Ireland to the so-called Nama 2, under the terms of the EU-IMF rescue deal.
The outgoing government published legislation – the Nama Amendment Act – to facilitate the transfer of those loans and they were supposed to have been moved over by the end of March. But the legislation was not debated by the Dáil before it was dissolved last month in advance of the general election. So Nama 2 was effectively put on ice pending the formation of a new government.
The programme for government states that the the new coalition will “end further asset transfers to Nama, which are unlikely to improve market confidence in either the banks or the State”.
This is now set to form part of the new coalition government’s renegotiation of Ireland’s bailout with the EU and IMF.
Nama declined to comment on this yesterday. No comment was available from either AIB and Bank of Ireland on the transfer of these smaller loans.
Of the €4 billion in big loans outstanding to Nama, they include about €1.1 billion relating to developer Paddy McKillen, who has taken a legal challenge to the transfer of his loans. It also includes loans that are under appeal to Nama on the grounds of eligibility by the various banks.
