On the general election campaign trail last month, Enda Kenny, injudiciously in my opinion, referred to the Cardinal Consortium as the preferred choice as buyers of state-owned EBS, but today the National Treasury Management Agency has issued a statement that the sale of EBS, which has been ongoing for nearly a year, has been cancelled because “the bid [by Cardinal] was not sufficiently commercially attractive to the State”
It was September 2010 when CNBC prematurely announced that the Cardinal Consortium which comprises Dublin’s Cardinal Asset Management , Wilbur Ross and the Carlyle group had won the battle to buy Irish state-owned Educational Building Society (EBS). As it happened, the bidding battle had some way to go and at that time there were still four bidders which were Cardinal, JC Flowers, Doughty Henson and Irish Life and Permanent (ILP). The bidders were whittled down to just two in October 2010 with Cardinal and ILP remaining in the race. Cardinal was touted by Enda Kenny as the preferred bidder. This morning ILP suspended its shares on the Irish Stock Exchange following rumours that that it will be imminently nationalized following publication of the bank stress tests tomorrow.
The cancellation of the EBS sale is perhaps not a surprising development. The Carlyle group is known for its tough negotiating character. Tomorrow we are likely to find out that EBS needs more capital than previous forecast, because of more severe losses on its mortgage loans. So perhaps Cardinal was felt to be playing hardball.
NAMA Wine Lake 
Why the headline?
Kenny made a statement of fact – Cardinal were chosen as the prefered bidders by the previous administration.
Explain please………….
Cardinal was told on 24th February, 2011 that it was the preferred bidder. This is according to the Irish Times – link here
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0226/1224290925440.html
Enda Kenny indicated preference for the Cardinal group during the election campaign eg on 22nd February during the RTE Prime Time Leaders Debate he stated “I also see a future for an amalgamation of EBS and outside investment, for instance, we met with the Cardinal group ourselves and they are very interested in that” – no mention of Irish Life and Permanent at all.
You are right to say that it was the previous administration who, on the eve of the general election, made Cardinal the preferred bidder but it is Enda Kenny that is now in the driving seat.
There has to be a serious suspicion due to the timing that EBS is going to be shown to have a significantly higher capital requirement than expected tomorrow?
16bn worth of mortgages?
I really wonder if the disappointed comments coming from the Cardinal gang are simply due to them not knowing what they were getting themselves into plus the Government is dumping them before they are dumped.