Results 9,681-9,700 of 21,149 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) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I do not think people would anticipate NAMA bringing down the Government but how and ever.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Sorry, Deputy Connolly, I have other questions.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: NAMA relies on Lazard. NAMA has cited its advisers repeatedly as guarantors as to the competitive tension within the process, having achieved best value in respect of the taxpayer and so on. This is very much the outfit that afforded NAMA the catch-all comfort blanket that all was well. Yet, it turns out, and we knew this already, that it was not informed of this carry on around fixer fees...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Can I put the following to Mr. Collison? I mean this genuinely as just a perspective. Given how things developed thereafter, given the fact that at the end of all of this, after all the comings and going have been concluded, NAMA is left, yes, with the sale but, again, with history repeating itself, and let us put it politely, a very deep controversy around success fees and fixers' fees and...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Did Mr. Collison know why PIMCO withdrew? Were Mr. Collison and Mr. Moriarty aware of the fixers' fees? Mr. John Collison:The success fee I became aware of literally after the board meeting on the 11th because I sat in on the call on the 12th as well when that discussion took place about PIMCO's exit. I was not aware before that and I was not at the board meeting on the 11th of March.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: And Mr. Moriarty similarly.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: When did Mr. Moriarty become aware of them?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I will be extremely brief. This question is on a different issue because there was a good deal of discussion on the discount rate, departure from the 5.5% rate and the different perspectives on that. However, another element that NAMA departed from was a position of working out the assets and a decision to bundle, but NAMA did not bundle the assets; it bundled debtors.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am aware that even when NAMA is bundling assets it is, in the final analysis, dealing with loans. That is the issue here. On 10 October 2013, NAMA started its discussions with PIMCO. At this stage the board has been informed of the interest of PIMCO and so on. NAMA meets with it. The head and deputy head of asset recovery, who is Mr. Collison-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----meet with PIMCO to explore its offer. I refer to Appendix C, and page 133 in particular, which records that in the paper NAMA presented to the board, PIMCO's approach is based on debtors who were based in the North, although they fully acknowledge that these debtors typically tended to also acquire assets in Britain and other jurisdictions, and PIMCO intends to acquire all such related...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: For the purposes of clarity, where were the debtors located?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: They were located in the North, and this was PIMCO's brain wave.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. Collison might help me with this aspect. Getting back to the reverse inquiry, Mr. Collison said there was information that was on the public record, that they could look at NAMA's balance sheet and arrive at their own conclusions. This may just be a lay person's blind spot. I could understand that more readily if it were a matter of them making assessments as to the individual assets,...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I understand that, but that is not what I am asking Mr. Collison. Does he understand the question I put to him?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: We now know Brown Rudnick brings this idea to PIMCO and it is an idea that is very specifically premised on the Northern debtors. That is the shape of the proposition and I am merely trying to understand why Brown Rudnick and PIMCO would have taken that particular approach that was very much focused not so much on the assets but on the debtors and where they were.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I know all of that-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----but that is not what I am asking.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am trying to get behind the rationale for all of this.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: That still does not explain why they would focus in on debtors in the North.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. Moriarty takes my point. Assets in the North could have been owned by Mr. Moriarty resident in Galway or Massachusetts.