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A FORMER BANK chief who has raised the possibility of selling-off the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) in future years has been appointed chair of the organisation’s newly established advisory group.
Michael Geoghegan, the former chief executive of HSBC bank, will chair the NAMA Advisory Group which has been set up by the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.
Noonan announced in his budget speech on Tuesday that he was setting up the group to advise him on NAMA’s strategy and capacity to deliver on its aim of disposal of property as well as its ongoing management of assets.
NAMA was set up in December 2009 in response to the financial crisis and acquired €75 billion of bad property loans from banks in an attempt to eventually sell them off and recoup some of the money that was put into the banks to prevent their collapse.
It has committed to repaying €7.5 billion of its debt by the end of 2013, €16.5 billion by the end of 2017 and €7 billion by end of 2019.
In a report into NAMA’s future role, carried out by Geoghegan, he has recommended that the organisation manage more loans directly, taking the 600 loans which are currently managed by borrowers from NAMA and instead manage them through the organisation’s own “debt restructuring team”.
“To give effect to this NAMA should recruit an additional 200 staff at a maximum cost of €25m,” the report says. Such a move may prove difficult politically to justify given the the billions of euro already poured into the financial sector by the government.
RTÉ reported yesterday that Geoghegan had also raised the possibility in meetings of selling off the entire agency eventually. It had previously been envisaged that NAMA would only dispose of all the loans on its books that it could.
But in concluding his report, Geoghegan recommends that NAMA must follow a strategic plan to meet the repayment schedule it has set out and warns: “Failure to achieve any of these targets both by amount or time would no doubt create uncertainty and should possibly lead to the assets of NAMA being given to one or more third parties to manage.”
Commenting on the review, Noonan said in a statement today: “I believe that the review is an important milestone for NAMA and will be of significant assistance to the Board as it completes the loan acquisition phase and begins to concentrate fully on the active management of its asset portfolio.”
The Minister said that the matters which have arisen in the “generally positive” report authored by Geoghegan will be discussed in due course.
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This is what happens when you put a shower of overpaid inexperienced pencil pushers in charge of billions.
One half decent property investor could replace NAMA entirely. Fact! .
Something tells me that NAMA wants to be a permanent fixture in Ireland.
There’s nothing so permanent as a Government created temporary measure.
If we had any half decent property developers we would have little need for NAMA.
He wants 200 staff for 25 million. That’s 125,000 per head. I’m in the wrong business – where do I send my CV?
I’d imagine the staff would be on multi year contracts though.
Easiest thing to do would be to get staff from AIB and co seconded to NAMA. It might stop the banks having to lay off so many people.
I like cats
I’ll scratch your back you scratch mine bleh same o’ll shit
I assume the rest of the advisory group will be “independently appointed” and none of them will have anything to do with Fianna Gael or Labour!
The whole of Nama should be flogged as soon as possible.
Perhaps floating it would get the maximum return.
Were these positions advertised? One if the promises of both parties in government was to make the appointments system more transparent.
Did you see any adverts for the SA the government ministers have ‘hired’?
Jobs for the boys…indeed!
CEO of ISPCA..he was a banker…now he’s killing dogs, but only the ugly ones… and being paid massively (whilst no doubt on a huge pension).
Even on a lower scale they seem to do ok, someone I know took early retirement, she on a pension and now she and all her friends have been offered their jobs back part time.
Hey… we are paying them.
Ehhhh, stall the ball. €25m for 200 people! Assuming that that is the wage cost for a year (they don’t really say what the €25m would cover), that’s 125k per person. Now I know some of that will be PAYE and the likes, but still!!!
have your say