Nama chairman for advisory group

THE MINISTER for Finance has appointed the Nama chairman to a group that will advise him on strategy and other matters relating to the State assets agency.

Michael Noonan announced plans to create the advisory body in his budget speech last December.

At that time he said it would be chaired by former HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan, who had just completed a review of Nama.

Yesterday, he said he had appointed Nama chairman Frank Daly and Dennis Rooney, a quantity surveyor and former head of the International Fund for Ireland, to the advisory body.

The advisory group will provide him with advice on the strategy that the agency is pursuing, the appointment of directors; and senior executive pay.

Mr Noonan said all three had agreed to work for free.

Mr Daly has been in the Nama chair since December 2009, before it began its work in earnest in 2010. He is a former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, a job he had for six years between 2002 and 2008.

Following the introduction of the bank guarantee in 2008, the Government appointed him “public interest” director to the board of Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Geoghegan worked for multinational bank HSBC for almost 40 years and took over as group chief executive in 2006. He retired in March 2011.

Mr Geoghegan carried out a private review of Nama last autumn which Mr Noonan said was “generally positive” of the agency.

Mr Rooney is a chartered quantity surveyor. He established the surveying and project management practice DRA in 1984, which was sold in 2003.

He also worked as chief executive of a planning and engineering consultancy, White Young Green Ireland.

Mr Rooney recently stepped down from his role as chairman of the International Fund for Ireland. He also served as chairman of the Institute of Directors, Northern Ireland and chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Northern Ireland.

Mr Noonan also announced that John Mulcahy, a former chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle and now head of the asset management division at Nama, had been appointed to the agency’s board.

“I believe that Mr Mulcahy has significant property management skills which will make him an asset to the board of Nama as it concentrates fully on the active management of its asset portfolio,” Mr Noonan said.

Nama’s asset management division works with developers, receivers that it has appointed and joint venture partners to identify properties and developments that can be managed to boost their value and the agency’s cash flow.

Mr Daly yesterday welcomed Mr Mulcahy’s appointment as an executive director of Nama and said it reflected his skill and experience, as well as the importance of the role of asset management at the agency.