Despite the little stumble with NAMA foreclosing on the loans of a developer who is bessie mates with a certain political party in Northern Ireland, the hastily-issued NAMA promise to spend €11m developing 100 homes in that party’s stronghold appears to have had a placating effect. It just shows you how diplomatic you need to when dealing with certain people.
Today, we have the report and accounts – available here – for PBN Property Limited for the year ended June 2012 in which the company heaps praise on the NAMA scheme, though also points out that NAMA hasn’t yet approved its business plan. PBN Property Limited is an important company in the PBN group, understood to be one of NAMA’s largest debtors in Northern Ireland, which is controlled by Paddy Kearney (“P”), Brian McConville (“B”) and former Anglo Northern Ireland boss, Neil Adair (“N”) though it is noteworthy that Neil resigned as a director of PBN Property Limited on 15th March 2013.
The company had sales of GBP 7.9m (€9.5m) though racked up a loss of GBP 0.4m though interestingly there is no writedown on its property holdings. It has GBP 162m of property-related assets but is balance sheet insolvent to the tune of GBP 4m. It has 12 employees paid GBP 333,000 in total.
PBN says today “the Directors welcome both the adventof this Irish government initiated bank asset relief agency which has both the time and resources to support the full exploitation of the Group’s asset base and NAMA’s responsible and measured approach to the property and construction industry in Northern Ireland” It also notes that it has submitted a “detailed” business plan to NAMA and that it continues to interact with NAMA to maximize the inherent long term economic value to be derived from the Group’s asset base.
Contrast that approach to the one adopted in 2010 when PBN lambasted the Republic’s banks and lack of lending and support generally.
Today of course PBN is in a straitened position with a small loss last year, an insolvent balance sheet and an audit opinion which is qualified for the not-unusual reason that it is nigh impossible to place a value on property assets at present.
Still, no harm in being diplomatic.
