NAMA in 2011 – Ten Predictions

This blog is neutral on NAMA. In principle the agency is one feasible way of helping deal with a banking catastrophe by clearly valuing, and then removing loans of doubtful value from banks’ balance sheets in return for nice crisp NAMA bonds, then nursing those loans at the bottom of the cycle and hopefully generating [...]

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UK House Prices drop 0.4% month on month (increase of 0.4% seasonally adjusted)

The Nationwide Building Society has this morning published its UK House Price data for December 2010. The Nationwide tends to be the first of the two UK building societies (the other being the Halifax) to produce house price data each month, it is one of the information sources referenced by NAMA’s Long Term Economic Value [...]

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A Review of NAMA in 2010

It was Dr Michael Somers, the former head of the NTMA that highlighted a flaw in the Irish character in his speech at the MacGill Summer School in beautiful Donegal in July this year – the flaw being that we tend to focus on process in this country at the expense of objective. It would [...]

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NAMA makes commitment to provide €5.5m for social housing, €0.04m for public CCTV, €0.2m for railway projects, €0.25m for environmental projects and €0.25m for public art. All in London. Confused?

One of the most puzzlings acts of omission by NAMA in 2010 must be the agency’s decision to refrain from absorbing Paddy McKillen’s loans following NAMA’s success in Dublin’s High Court at the start of November. Instead NAMA has said that it will refrain from acquiring Paddy’s estimated €2.1bn loans from NAMA Participating Institutions pending [...]

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Minister fails to introduce promised legislation for House Price Database

Perhaps he is more pre-occupied with plans for spending the €308,000 he is expected to be given from the public purse next year, having announced his decision not to seek re-election, but Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern has failed to fulfil the commitment he made in August this year to introduce legislation [...]

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Happy Christmas from NAMAwinelake

The run-up to Christmas 2009 saw a frenzy of activity with NAMA and the banks (NAMA incorporated 19th December, NAMA board appointed 22nd December, first NAMA board meeting on 23rd December, unreported unlawful written financial undertakings by Minister for Finance Lenihan in respect of INBS and Anglo on 22nd December – unlawful because the undertakings [...]

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Did NAMA lie to the Committee of Public Accounts?

Well this story may well develop legs. On 18th November, 2010 NAMA’s CEO, Brendan McDonagh and three of his colleagues appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts (CPA). There were a few testy exchanges and then the Fianna Fail deputy Michael McGrath launched into a surprisingly eager line of questioning about the information provided to [...]

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AIB nationalised amidst the explusion of Irish Times journalists at Dublin’s High Court – the shape of things to come

In what seems like a low point in Irish jurisprudence, the Irish Times reports a judge at the High Court this morning agreed to exclude two journalists from the Irish Times from a hearing which saw some €3.7bn taken from the pension reserve and injected into a bank with little prospect of a return. The [...]

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State set to control 66% of NAMA SPV. How much longer can we keep NAMA bonds off the national debt?

You couldn’t fail but be impressed by the delicate choreography to ensure NAMA’s bonds (which it trades for land and development and associated loans at the five Participating Institutions) stayed off the official national debt figures. That of course was back in 2009 when there was some dim hope that we might have contained our [...]

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Prime Time Investigates NAMA developers. But exactly what new information was revealed?

RTE transmitted a capable current affairs programme last night which examined the wealth and lifestyles of several top NAMA developers who owe the agency an average €1-2bn. As a close follower of NAMA, I must say that it was the first Prime Time programme on NAMA where I haven’t found myself shouting at the TV [...]

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