Change at the top of the ECB but little expectation of change for Ireland

So farewell then Jean-Claude Trichet, the 68-year old president of the ECB whose last day in office is today. From tomorrow, the governor of the Italian central bank, Mario Draghi will take over the reins as ECB president at this crucial juncture in the young life of the euro. The avuncular-looking Jean-Claude has been president [...]

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Stop Press! NAMA publishes its fourth enforcement list, more foreclosed property on offer.

Here’s the full list (the file is 3MB so it might take a moment to load). Here’s the new stuff. (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) This is what you are looking at (1) Real estate property subject to loans in NAMA to which receivers have been appointed. The receiver’s website is shown against each [...]

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Flight of private sector deposits from covered Irish banks seems to be slowing

“retail deposits have seen some momentum in September following the stabilization of the banks and their recapitalization” briefing by the Department of Finance in October 2011 This morning the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) released its monthly data on banks, deposits and loans in Irish banks as at 30th September 2011. During the month of [...]

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Latest EU summit delivers kick in the Irish unmentionables

“It’s shite being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low! The scum of the fucking Earth!  The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash… that was ever shat into civilization! Some people hate the English. I don’t! They’re just wankers! We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers! Can’t even find a decent culture to [...]

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NAMA before the public accounts committee – “mind the pennies and the pounds will mind themselves” NOT!

[UPDATE: 2nd November, 2011. The transcript of the hearing is now available here ] Here’s a question for you – say you were going to buy a car and a house. And you had a budget of €20k for the car and €300k for the house. Wouldn’t you expect to spend proportionately more time considering [...]

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CSO residential property indices for September 2011 published – declines continue across board with a 4.8% monthly decline in Dublin apartments

This morning has seen the publication of the seventh CSO residential property price indices for Ireland. The inaugural series was published by the CSO on 13th May 2011 and covered the period from January 2005 to March 2011. This morning’s release covers the month of September 2011. Here’s the summary showing the index at its [...]

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Judge rules that NAMA receivers not prevented from selling property to associates of developers – report

“The receiver was not hidebound by any views of Nama concerning purchase offers made by Mansfield interests or by persons introduced to the receiver by those interests, the judge [Judge Kelly] added. There was no evidence the receiver would do the agency’s bidding.” – Mary Carolan reporting the Jim Mansfield case in the Irish Times [...]

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Exclusive: NAMA reveals its negotiation position

Just four weeks ago the NAMA CEO, Brendan McDonagh took a thinly-disguised swipe at vulture funds and bottom-feeders when he said at the Corporate Restructuring Summit in Dublin “if there is one key message I can ask you to take away from today it is: there is no point approaching us with an offer which [...]

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An open letter to the Oireachtas public accounts committee

The NAMA CEO, Brendan McDonagh is set to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts in the Oireachtas this coming Wednesday 26th October where the discussion topic is billed as “Annual Report and Financial Statements 2010”. Proceedings are expected to get underway at 10am on Wednesday in Committee Room 1 and live video streaming should [...]

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What would happen if Anglo didn’t repay the $1bn bond maturing on 2nd November, 2011 (Part 2 of 2)

This is the second part of a blogpost focussing on the repayment of a senior unguaranteed, unsecured bond at Anglo; part one was posted yesterday here. This entry examines in some detail what would happen if Anglo didn’t repay the bond. The blogpost yesterday covered the position of the main stakeholders in the making of [...]

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