One more thing

US firm may sell on Nama debt; car hire group gets award; joy as Dempsey takes flight; and the Christmas quiz winner is...

Nama loans could be an easy sell:

WITH THE National Asset Management Agency (Nama) trying to work through €71.2 billion in toxic assets, it’s not surprising to discover a queue is forming of firms which believe they might have a solution to how Irish taxpayers can get their money back.

One such entity that has come across my radar is DebtX, an online US auction house that sells loans for banks, insurers and government agencies.

Informed sources tell me the Boston-based company, which is led by Kingsley Greenland III, has had a number of meetings in recent times with Nama to present its credentials.

It has also had conversations with some of the foreign banks operating here which have multiple bad loans sitting on their balance sheets.

DebtX has form in this space. It has sold loans from failed banks on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the US.

The process it operates is straightforward.

It prepares an asset for sale, collating the paperwork, writing a summary of the loan and setting up a secure online data room for bidders to access. It claims to have more than “6,000 registered and approved investors” to whom it aggressively markets. DebtX then seeks sealed bids which, it seems, tends to get them the best price possible.

It operates on a no foal, no fee basis. Set up 20 years ago, DebtX has been active in Europe since 2005, particularly in Germany and Italy.

DebtX is believed to have “taken a look under the hood”, so to speak, of Irish loans and believes there are some good assets that could shift easily.

“There’s some junk in there too, that will be priced at agriculture land . . . it’s a chequerboard,” a source told me.

It remains to be seen whether Nama will avail of DebtX’s services.

Its past success in selling loans from distressed institutions involved placing “realistic” valuations on assets.

So it might be suggesting steep discounts to the prices already paid by Nama.

This would be a haircut on the haircut, if you like. This might be an unpalatable prospect for Nama and its political masters – but might also have to be a part of the solution.

O'Leary clears one departure

NOEL DEMPSEY’s decision to resign as transport minister didn’t draw any sympathy from Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary yesterday.

“Good riddance,” O’Leary told me. “Hopefully he’ll take the Dublin Metro with him on his way back to Trim.”

O’Leary often butted heads with Dempsey over the years, notably on the building of Terminal 2 in Dublin and the air travel tax.

He has also been a vocal critic of the multi-billion euro Metro North rail project.

“It seems to me like some kind of bloody Green [Party] project,” he added. “I would have thought that Dublin airport has had more than enough billions wasted on it without building a metro to St Stephen’s Green for €6 billion when we’re broke.”

Customer care award for Executive Trust car hire

SOME GOOD news this week for the Irish master franchise holder at the Thrifty car hire group.

Executive Trust, run by Colm Menton, scooped the best customer care award from listed parent Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, beating fellow franchise holders from around the world.

The Irish car hire market – where Hertz is the biggest operator – has been hammered in the recession. It is estimated to have shrunk by about 30 per cent since 2007 due to the collapse in the number of visitors to this country. That number is back at 1998 levels.

“We’re still profitable in spite of a difficult market,” Menton told me yesterday.

Accounts for the year to the end of August 2009 show Executive Trust achieved pre-tax profits of about €1.15 million in the year.

“We did about the same level last year,” Menton said. Revenues were static as volumes fell by 5 per cent.

Menton isn’t running from the recession. Last year he bought Irish Car Rentals out of examinership, which added the Alamo, Europcar and National Car Rentals brands to his stable.

What are the prospects for 2011? “I don’t think it will be any worse,” he predicted. “Tourism has to be at the bottom. There are signs that the American market is busier, but Britain is still difficult with the exchange rate.

“But I’m optimistic that the market will improve.”

Menton said the market needs to “help itself”, adding that offers of car hire for €10 a day, including insurance, was “just suicide”.

“That’s just not sustainable.”

Menton was a founder of leasing company Cambridge Group in the 1980s. It listed on the stock market but later went into receivership.

Menton got into the vehicle hire business in 1989 with the purchase of Malone Car Hire, before taking on Thrifty in 2002.

Little Things

Kerry entrepreneur Jerry Kennelly has taken a break from New York, where he is plotting the launch of his latest venture, Tweak.com.

He is back in Kerry to focus on Endeavour, the business start-up programme he helped to set up.

The clock is ticking for those interested in entering this year – the closing date is next Wednesday.

Successful applicants will be involved in seven training sessions, with phase two involving the 10 best new businesses taking part in a boot camp in Kerry.

Endeavour will take a 3 per cent stake in companies that make it to phase two and provide €5,000 funding and free office space. The panel of mentors include Ann Heraty of CPL, Brian Long of Atlantic Bridge, Liam Casey of PCH International, Terry Clune of Taxback.com and Michael Carey of Jacob Fruitfield.

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Dundrum Town Centre increased its turnover by about 2.3 per cent in 2010, centre director Don Nugent told me this week. Combined revenues for its traders were flat at about €700 million, not a bad result given the snow disruptions last year. “It was a difficult year but we’re lucky to have so many blue- chip retailers here,” Nugent said.

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Three big State body PR contracts are currently out to tender.

Tourism Ireland, the Irish Dairy Board and training agency Fás are all currently out to pitch.

Good luck to whomever lands the Fás account.

Christmas Quiz

THANKS TO all those who entered my Christmas Quiz. There was a huge entry, which took some time to work through.

Apologies to Simon Coveney whose office I understand was bombarded with queries about his brother Patrick’s date of birth. The winner of the iPad is Damian Gibbons, of Spectrum Print Logistics Ltd in Dublin 24.

Answers: 1. Joe Moran; 2. Parent of Four Star Pizza, which went into examinership; 3. Whitegate, Cork; 4. Fexco; 5. 1970; 6. Michelle Massey; 7. Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank, KBC; 8. Jerry Levin; 9. Michael O’Flynn; 10. “Show me the Money”; 11. $1; 12. Andrew Richards; 13. €752,000; 14. First flight at Terminal 2 in Dublin airport; 15. March; 16. Just Mobile; 17. To vote on break-up of Glanbia; 18. The Competition Authority; 19. AIB; 20. Special Resolution Regime; 21. Avolon; 22. Super Valu and Centra; 23. Anglo American; 24. 9.472%; 25. Brian Conlon; 26. Tony Hayward of BP; 27. Toyota; 28. €212m; 29. Larry Ellison; 30. Twitter; 31; Angry Birds; 32. €29.3bn; 33. Bilbao; 34. David Hodgkinson of AIB; 35. Chorus and NTL; 36. €161,000; 37. Balmoral International Land; 38. Michael McAteer and Paul McCann; 39. BIAM, New Ireland, ICS, FCE, and stakes in Paul Capital and Irish Credit Bureau; 40. Enterprise Securities Market.