Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 September 2016

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle

9:00 am

Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

At the same time as Project Eagle was on the market, we were preparing Project Tower to go on the market. As part of this, UBS in its review of Project Tower stated we should expect to discount the cashflows at a rate of approximately 10%. This portfolio was much better than the portfolio in Project Eagle. The next big portfolio to be compared was Project Arrow. Again, it was a granular portfolio, much the same as Project Eagle, and it went on the market about a year and a half later. Even though interest rates had come down and people were seeking yields, we were advised by Cushman & Wakefield, a completely different broker, that effectively we should expect to discount the cash flows at about 15%. Subsequent to this, earlier this year we put Projects Eagle and Gem - sorry, Emerald and Ruby - on the market. Cushman & Wakefield were the loan sales advisers on this, and they said that the discount rate should be around 12% because this was the targeted return of bidders. There is nothing inconsistent here in that.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.