Less than 2 weeks ago at the Richard Cantillon School of Economics in Tralee, NAMA CEO Brendan McDonagh revealed that NAMA was close to disposing of €500m of property. The next day the Irish Independent carried a report on the NAMA CEO’s speech which included the following “the agency is also preparing to sell off land worth around €500m as it tries to meet a target to dispose of a quarter of its portfolio by the end of 2013. The land will be sold by local auctioneers and those buying the land will not know that it is being sold by NAMA. The only signs that NAMA is active will be “realistic asking prices”, Mr McDonagh added”
News reaching NAMAwinelake suggests that the above property, a 248 bay car park in the heart of London’s Mayfair may be one of the first NAMA properties to be sold in the UK, though it is unclear if the property is being sold by owners Park Rite (whose directors include Derek Quinlan) or by NAMA, or under NAMA’s auspices.
The car park has the benefit of planning permission granted earlier this year by City of Westminster council for “demolition of existing buildings and erection of new building of eight /nine storeys (plus lower ground floor and four basement levels) to provide 24 residential units with swimming pool and gymnasium, creation of roof terraces, green roof”. The end use value has been estimated at GBP £300m.
And what about the price? There is speculation that the property achieved a remarkable GBP £180m (€211m) – the price quoted by PropertyWeek earlier this year and that it is subject to an Anglo loan of GBP £130m which may not just see the 100% payment of a NAMA loan but may make an extra GBP £50m available to pay other Quinlan debts.
Is NAMA finally beginning to realize its loans.
UPDATE: 12th October, 2011. The Financial Times (free registration required) is today reporting that British mobile phone tycoon John Cauldwell is set to purchase the car park for GBP 150m (€171m) which is GBP 30m (€34m) less than the price that it was speculated the site would generate just a year ago. Despite the central London residential market continuing to boom in the past year. Whilst the price reported is apparently more than NAMA paid for the loans, it is a little disappointing.
Word on the street is that the car park was sold for £180 million ex Nama, the original loan from Anglo is rumoured to have been £130 million and that the Nama valuation was circa £50 million.
If any of this gossip is true it means that Anglo lost £80 million on the transfer to Nama (£130m – £50m) and that Nama made £130 million (£180m -£50M) from the transfer – assuming that they kept the surplus £50 million.
The pundits in Doheny and Nesbitts didn’t seem to know whether the loan or the asset was sold.