Mr. Michael Moriarty:

I might pick that up in a general sense as well. That methodology is a very well-recognised way of selling loans. Typically, as we have described, and it has been reported, we do a two-phase sale where we put out a limited amount of information and anyone who signs up to a non-disclosure agreement and looks like they are a credible bidder can have a look at that. We have a first round of bids, then we have a short list of typically three who go into the second round. They receive access then to a huge amount of more detailed things and then we get final bids from the three.

It is quite common, even though we have not used it in many instances, for the one-phase approach to be used. In an entirely different situation, I have seen advice from one of the biggest loan sale brokers on both sides of the Atlantic which says that it has done it in this way in more than half the transactions of this type that it has done, and it suits particular types of transactions. One of the actual instances the broker cites which it has executed is, by co-incidence, a Northern Ireland portfolio of in excess of 900 properties. It targeted three people and says it can get the competitive tension. There is a quasi-first round in that people want to be in it and they want to qualify for those short lists. This broker tells us it has done more than half its business in this way.