Project Arrow draws political flak

Nama's decision to name Cerberus as the preferred bidder for the Project Arrow portfolio was already drawing political flak by the close of business yesterday. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams called for the sale to be suspended.

Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath warned that by continuing with deals on this scale, the agency was trusting the future of a large chunk of the economy to a small group of what some people fondly call "vulture funds" that have no real long-term commitment to Ireland.

Both of them referred to the controversy over Project Eagle. Cerberus bought the largely Northern Ireland-linked loans from Nama last year for €1.6 billion. Aspects of that deal are now under scrutiny by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) and Northern Ireland Assembly finance and personnel committee.

The investigations and the controversy began when it emerged that £6 million had been transferred from one of Cerberus's advisers, Belfast solicitors Tughans, without the firm's knowledge, to an Isle of Man account controlled by its then managing partner, Ian Coulter, who resigned in January.

The NCA is part of the UK police force, but that did not deter a UK government agency, Asset Resolution – a kind of Nama-lite – from selling £11.7 billion worth of Northern Rock mortgages to Cerberus last week, even though the fund is linked to a criminal investigation.

Cerberus itself says that it is happy to co-operate with any investigation and says that it has done nothing wrong.

Both deals have helped the fund, which is responsible for about $25 billion in assets worldwide and is a bid player in the distressed asset market, to become the number one buyer of non-performing loans in Europe this year.

Along with Ireland, where it has done two deals, it has been picking up assets in the UK and western Europe, and at this stage looks set to continue sweeping up the mess left by financial crisis for some time to come.