Lord of the Dance
NAMA redeems €7bn from sale of British properties
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NAMA redeems €7bn from sale of British properties

EIGHTY per cent of the €9billion worth of properties Nama have sold to date are in Britain.

The figure was revealed to The Irish Post following an annual report which showed that the bad bank had sold debt connected to more than 2,000 properties in Ireland.

But the vast bulk of the money recouped has come from properties in Britain.

A spokesperson for Nama told The Irish Post that an estimated 65 per cent of the British properties were London-based, with 15 per cent from other parts of Britain.

The debt managed by Nama, Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency, is attached to some of Britain’s most iconic buildings, with Battersea Power Station in London, arguably the most famous.

But there have been other landmarks. In 2010 the agency completed the sale of loans that were attached to Claridges and Connacht hotels in the capital. The loans, which were sold for €800million, had been provided to the Maybourne Hotel Group by two Irish banks to fund acquisition of the hotels in 2005.

Nama is aiming to break even by the time it winds down in 2020 and expects to pay down its €30billion in senior debt in full by that time.

It believes that about €900million worth of land, outside commuter belts in Ireland, will remain.

Nama and its debtors and receivers have also sold more than 2,000 individual properties in Ireland and are currently actively seeking buyers for Irish residential and commercial property worth about €1.5billion.

Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh told the Public Accounts Committee that the agency will redeem €750million of its senior debt in the coming days.

This would bring to €7billion the amount redeemed by Nama so far from the €30billion in senior debt that it held at inception.