Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 October 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Sale of Loans to Unregulated Private Investment Funds: Discussion

9:30 am

Mr. Neil McDonnell:

That is quite opaque. We are not in the business of gathering much information on that. I tried to cover off the two bases in the case studies in my presentation. Both my colleagues either side of me have referred to the degree of opacity in the process. A lender sells a loan for 40% of face value and the fund has an asset worth 60% of the original borrowings. What is not evident to the borrower, who is dealing with a receiver acting on behalf of a fund, is how many cents on the euro the parties expect to receive and the bonusing arrangement working between those two parties. Effectively, a negotiation is taking place between the two, and this is not always evident. This arose in the earlier session. I was listening in to the Chairman's interaction earlier. This is as much an interaction with the receiver, which can force sales at a totally unrealistic pace, especially in a market in which assets are depressed in value. Now the dynamic is reversed and asset prices are rising, so there is a concern among some of our members that where there was forbearance before, it was tactical and due to asset values being depressed. Now that those asset values are at or above par-----

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