With an estimated €22bn of property-backed loans being acquired by NAMA reckoned to be located in the UK (€17bn in Britain and €5bn in the North), NAMA is being regarded as a potential major vendor. Delegates at Savill’s annual Property Financing conference in London heard that Lloyds, RBS and NAMA account for more than half of all UK real estate debt (although not specified I think they’re talking about debt due in the next 2 years). William Newson, UK head of valuation at Savills is reported to have said “that NAMA’s problems “were so big” that it may decide to focus on managing assets within its domestic market and seek to offload UK properties first”
The same conference heard that a problem facing NAMA and other sellers will be the unwinding of interest rate swaps – financial devices purchased by borrowers whereby they contracted to swap their interest payment commitments (usually floating in Ireland – ECB + 2% seems to have been about the average) with other borrowers who had fixed rate interest commitments – unwinding a 5-year swap put in place in 2007 would cost 12% of the original loan value.
The conference also heard that there was finance available but that historically low loan to value rates coupled with “low lending ambitions” on the part of banks created a difficult environment. German banks are seen as the best providers of loan finance at present.
NAMA Wine Lake 
[…] the legislation, is desirable.” The hoard-or-dispose debate is no doubt raging within NAMA. Savills recently told a prestigious London conference that NAMA was more likely to take a longer period to […]