THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said found that “it was not procedurally appropriate” for Michael Noonan to meet with senior representatives from New York based private investment firm Cerberus the day before NAMA’s Project Eagle bid closing date.
In a report issued this Tuesday, the PAC has criticised a number of aspects of the handling of the project sale calling it “seriously deficient”.
In June 2014, NAMA sold its Northern Ireland remaining portfolio of loans in a single lot to Cerberus for a price of STG £1.137 billion. The sale of the portfolio was code named Project Eagle.
NAMA recorded a loss of STG £162m in its accounts on the sale of Project Eagle and a total loss of €800m during the period of 2010 to 2014.
In total, the State lost €3.55 billion over the Nothern Ireland based NAMA loans as it only managed to recover 36 per cent of their original par value.
Cerberus, the private investment firm based in New York, was the successful bidder for Project Eagle and up to December 22, 2016 it had purchased stock to €14.4 billion or 20 per cent of NAMA’s assets.
Senior figures including Minister Noonan, the NAMA chairman and CEO meeting with Cerberus the day before the bid closing date could have given the perception that Cerberus was benefiting from preferential treatment.
The PAC also found that the continued involvement of Frank Cushnahan as a Member of the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee was a failure of corporate governance by NAMA.
Furthermore, the Committee state in their report that “is firmly of the view that the sale of Project Eagle was not a well designed sales process” and the destruction of contemporaneous Nama Board notes “has undermined NAMA’s ability to explain and account satisfactorily to the Public Accounts Committee in relation to its decision making processes.”
The full report can be viewed here.
