Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 July 2015

Public Accounts Committee

National Asset Management Agency: Financial Statements 2014

9:30 am

Mr. Frank Daly:

No, not at that stage. There were two remaining, but there had been nine. That would not have been unusual. One might start with eight or nine bidders and whittle them down to the two or three who are really interested. At that stage, there were still two. We wanted Lazard to give us an assurance that there was still genuine competitive tension, which it did unequivocally. There was competitive tension, we were still of the view that we would get the best price possible and we went down that road. Cerberus emerged on top and we had a disappointed underbidder, which is always good to have in a process.