Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed)

10:00 am

Mr. Patrick Long:

We made a judgment at the time to approach three other firms first, none of which was in that top four at the time, but we were trying to identify firms that we thought would be best qualified and most interested in acquiring this portfolio. Once the firms that we approached initially declined to participate in the process, then we approached other firms. Just to recap, apart from the approach from PIMCO, of those in the first batch, as Deputy Connolly mentioned earlier, Oaktree was one of those three. Oaktree did engage in the process for several weeks and, for a large part of the process, appeared to be working on this transaction very intensively. Blackstone and Starwood Capital may have withdrawn from that first batch, but Oaktree, at any rate, was seriously interested.