Who owns NAMA? Officially we own 49%, Bank of Ireland owns 17%, AIB owns 17% and Irish Life owns 17%. Unofficially we control the whole shebang and the other “independent third party investors” are silent partners who picked up a €5m dividend on their €51m investment in 2010, despite NAMA making a loss of €1.1bn. Sweet investment!
But in April 2012, Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan announced that Irish Life’s 17% was being sold to a private investor because the State had taken control of Irish Life and along with our 49% stake, that would mean we, the State, controlled more than 50% of NAMA and that would mean NAMA’s debts of nearly €30bn would need to come onto the national accounts. Minister Noonan didn’t identify the new “private investor” at the time, and as recently as last week was saying the identity would remain confidential until the deal was concluded. And that remains the case.
But what of AIB? We own 99% of that bank, so why wasn’t that an issue with Eurostat who warned that our control of Irish Life was threatening to bring NAMA’s debt onto the national accounts? The 17% stake is actually owned by an AIB subsidiary called AIB Investment Managers which is part of a parent subsidiary called AIB Asset Management Holdings Limited and last November 2011, it was announced that this subsidiary was being sold to a South African financial services group, Prescient Holdings, and today it has been reported that this sale has been approved by the Central Bank so it would seem that the South Africans are set to acquire a 17% stake in NAMA. David Clerkin, formerly of the Sunday Business Post, now working with NAMA’s PR company, reported in September 2010 that AIB Investment Managers were in fact managing a group pension scheme for AIB employees.
The precise terms of the arrangement between NAMA and these “independent third party investors”, as the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan used call them, has never been revealed. And given this new administration’s lack of transparency on NAMA matters generally, we don’t appear to be any closer to finding out the terms of what is just a convolution to avoid the IOUs that NAMA issued to buy the loans from the banks, coming onto the national books.
NAMA Wine Lake 
As I said to Eurostat at the time of the NAMA setup : the accounting for NAMA is staright out of the Enron accounting manual and all NAMA liabilities and assets should be shown on the Balance Sheet for rhe Irish state.
@NWL its Friday, apologies but could not resist!
Not necessary to look as far as Houston for examples of accounting gimmicks,no less an august body than Bloxham,fully supports NAMA,ignorantia juris non excusat and all that!
If you can not manage your own money or firm…..
“A leading stock broking firm is coming out in support of NAMA today.
Bloxham says it is the best way forward and the alternatives are much more expensive.”
http://www.herald.ie/breaking-news/national-news/bloxham-says-it-supports-nama-1877487.html
NAMA’s new shareholders struck quite the deal,does the purchase price of AIBA include the shareholding in NAMA,or as it a gimme!
“Steyn is now following the example of his old shop, buying AIB Asset Management in Dublin from Allied Irish Bank. It is coming at a knockdown price of 0,18% of assets, or about € 15m , based on current assets of € 8,5bn .”
http://www.fm.co.za/Article.aspx?id=160705
Who negotiated this deal,Noonan,or did the exposure to NAMA drag the price down!
The looting and plundering continues unabated,sale of the century,asset stripping of a unprecedented nature.
“State Street is paying €57m for the Irish firm, which manages €26bn in total, implying a valuation of 0.22% of assets under management. That is uncommonly cheap for funds acquisitions.”
http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2010-10-22/state-street-acquires-bank-of-ireland-asset-management