Dr. Martha O'Hagan-Luff:

It is a mixture of both. In terms of a full international comparison, I do not have enough information to say this is exactly what happened. I can say that the market for distressed debt in Europe is extremely low and under-developed compared with the US market and is around one tenth the size of the US market. It will be a mixture of the two elements the Deputy has suggested, namely, restructuring or voluntarily gaining access to the collateral, be that in the form of buy-to-let or residential mortgages, and selling it. Alternatively, if the property market rose over time and they had purchased these assets at a discount, they could sell these on at a profit, which would be another option for them.