Daly hints Nama would sell assets back to defaulters - Independent.ie

By RONALD QUINLAN

Sunday March 18 2012

NAMA chairman Frank Daly has strongly indicated that the agency wants permission from the Government to sell assets back to developers who have already defaulted on the repayment of their loans.

"This may not be a very popular thing to say, but for example, the restriction in the [Nama] Act which bars us from selling assets back to a defaulting debtor; that's a restriction that doesn't apply to any other body that's in the same business or in the same space that we are.

"So will that be a problem in the future? I don't know, but it's something we'll have to consider," Mr Daly told the Dail's Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform last Wednesday.

The Nama chairman was responding to a question from Fine Gael TD Liam Twomey in which he asked if Nama had identified any legislative barriers to its work.

While Mr Daly began by saying Nama hadn't identified any need for legislative change at the moment, he went on to outline the disadvantage Nama was at in being prohibited from selling assets back to the defaulting developers on its books.

"We are, I make no bones about it, to a certain extent disadvantaged in relation to other banks or other entities out there who might be in the same business as we are, deleveraging in the property market," he said.

The Nama chairman told the committee his agency would inform the Government if it identified something it considered to be a legislative barrier.

Contacted by the Sunday Independent for additional clarification of Mr Daly's remarks, a spokesman for Nama said: "Other banks are allowing defaulting debtors buy back their properties at today's much reduced prices and NAMA can't do it at present."

Asked by the Sunday Independent for his reaction to the Nama chairman's comments on the potential sale of assets back to developers who had already defaulted on their loans, Fine Gael TD Liam Twomey said: "It's not government policy right now and there would be no appetite from anybody to see developers buying back their property loans at knockdown prices.

"I will certainly be asking has the board of Nama discussed this, and have they been talking about getting the legislation changed so they can do this. It would be very much up to the Government to make that sort of legislative change and there's no desire to do that to the best of my knowledge. But I would like to tease this out with them."

Commenting on Nama's strategy to date, Mr Twomey added: "Are they starting to recognise that they've got serious problems in the future once all the UK, American and European properties are sold off? Will they be left with unsaleable assets which will be another disaster for the taxpayer? Nama is more or less selling all of its best assets. What you're left with is a load of property dross, and maybe the only people who will buy that sort of rubbish are the people who bought it in the first place."

via independent.ie

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