Mr. Frank Daly:

As far as we are aware, Cerberus did not begin to use Brown Rudnick or Tughans until after PIMCO had pulled out. Its rationale, which it explained to us, was that Brown Rudnick and Tughans had done a great deal of due diligence work for PIMCO, so it made commercial sense for it to avail of that work. I do not know, but I presume that this may have been reflected in the price or cost that Cerberus eventually paid to Brown Rudnick.

There is another point about why we continued with the sale. We were still getting from Cerberus a figure that was in excess of our minimum price for Project Eagle. With Cerberus, there was competitive price tension even during the period after the deal was agreed and the money was paid when it was trying to knock us back for technical reasons, which we resisted. We got the full price.

There was another reason for continuing. If one went through a sales process in respect of what was, as Mr. McDonagh outlined, a troubled portfolio that was hard to shift, one might abort it at the last minute for genuine reasons, but one would not want to do so because whatever prospect there was of getting a good price for it would certainly lessen after taking it off the market and starting all over again, as people out there would know that one was having difficulties.