Results 9,481-9,500 of 21,440 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I mean the success fees. We are missing the point that the concern that PIMCO had was not just that this was not appropriate but that it was potentially illegal. As the loan sales adviser, how did Mr. Long ensure that the law was not broken? I am very surprised that Mr. Long is so mild in his response to NAMA and the fact, as it seems to me, that he was deliberately kept in the dark. It...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Lazard is a large organisation and Mr. Long is an experienced and respected professional. How is it that Lazard entered into a transaction of this nature? Given the amount of money involved and the potentially large profit to be made, I would have thought Lazard would have sought watertight assurances that it was acting in an environment of compliance.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: So Lazard was made aware of that information but it was not made aware of the fact that there had been potential breaches in the PIMCO arrangement.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Sorry, is Mr. Long confirming that that is how it happened?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. Long harbours no professional angst at the fact that NAMA kept that information from him.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: In terms of "what ifs" if PIMCO had not approached NAMA and this had just sailed through Lazard would have been a party to something outside of the regulation and the law potentially.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am very concerned because much of the conversation around this report from the Comptroller and Auditor General, NAMA's response and all of the debate has been anchored in an idea of reputational damage.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: The concern is for any reputational damage to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which as Mr. Long is aware is a constitutional office. There is also a lot of angst in respect of reputational damage to NAMA. I put it to Mr. Long as the representative of Lazard that reputational damage accrues to himself also. With the greatest of respect to Mr. Long far from demonstrating...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thought as much.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: For the purposes of clarity for the general public, let us set out what happened. Lazard secured this gig with no tender, which was strange. Lazard received a verbal briefing from Ronnie Hanna in which it was told about political sensitivities and so on. It had no role in valuation. It did not control the data room: that fell to NAMA. The whole process then became very complicated and...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Let me come at this in a different way. I ask Mr. Long to pull up paragraph 4.17 of the report on his screen. In regard to the arrangement between Lazard and NAMA and the confidentiality which Mr. Long has referenced several times, it states that potential bidders were to be prohibited from contacting the debtors. In other words, there was to be a Chinese wall in terms of debtor...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: No, the parties concerned were still active and engaged and had been the architects of things. In regard to the term "prohibited from contacting the debtors" I take that kind of standard on its word.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. Long appears to be suggesting that so long as the contact would be mediated through a third party or in some kind of-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: What is Mr. Long suggesting?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: That would therefore render null and void any job or responsibility that Lazard, as an organisation, would have had in terms of that piece of confidentiality and creating the wall between the bidder and the debtors.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: How is that relevant, even if that were the case? Lazard was taken on in the circumstances I have described as the loan adviser. One of the key elements signed off with NAMA is the issue around contact with debtors. I have put it to the witness, Cerberus has confirmed it and we know through the goings on with PIMCO that this was absolutely breached. It was decimated. It did not stand up...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: For the purposes of reassuring me, please tell me it was not a case of Lazard seeing what it wished to see and looking the other way in the course of this transaction as things unfolded. Please assure me that did not happen.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am not convinced by the earlier testimony given by the witness. He stated that when PIMCO withdrew, he was not hugely concerned because other parties and potential bidders had shown an interest before going cold and pulling away.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, I heard that.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: No. I have a note and when asked by another Deputy Mr. Long said it withdrew, right enough, but he was not hugely concerned because others had been involved and had withdrawn.