Nama reports €750m pre-impairment profit for last year

THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency will report a pre-impairment profit of “at least” €750 million for 2011, its chief executive Brendan McDonagh said in London last night.

This figure does not include impairment charges to reflect the current value of its portfolio compared to 2½ years ago when the loans were primed for transfer from the Irish banks.

The State loans agency has yet to publish its annual report for 2011 but Mr McDonagh provided some insight into the figures while addressing the London arm of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

He said Nama had approved €7.7 billion in asset sales and was targeting “high recovery levels” over the next three years of €7.5 billion.

Of the approved sales, €720 million has occurred so far in 2012.

Another €5.04 billion occurred in 2011 with €1.91 billion in the previous year.

The approved sales has generated gross cash flow of €6.8 billion for Nama over the past 23 months.

This comprised principal repayments of €5.3 billion and interest and other income of €1.5 billion.

Mr McDonagh said Nama was “on target” to repay bonds of €7.5 billion by end 2013, with Nama senior debt redemptions of €1.25 billion in 2011.

It has approved advances of €1.13 billion in working capital to its debtors. Of this figure, €150 million has been approved so far this year.

More than €4.2 billion in cash is available to Nama, he added.

Mr McDonagh’s presentation last night highlighted how the “most difficult part of the portfolio to monetise is likely” to be the €5.4 billion land and development in Ireland, of which Dublin accounts for €3 billion.

“The remaining €26.4 billion “should be realised [in today’s money] from the rest of the portfolio,” he added.

He said there was a “good opportunity” to continue to realise value in overseas markets in the short term, with about €6 billion of the portfolio in London.

Many of the figures in Mr McDonagh’s speech last night have already been made public.

However, Nama yesterday published for the first time a breakdown of the €31.78 billion property portfolio that it assumed from the banks by region and asset type. All of the valuations date back to November 2009.

It showed that the Republic accounted for €17.92 of the total and Britain €10.76 billion. Northern Ireland accounted for €1.26 billion, with rest of the world at €1.84 billion.

In Ireland, it acquired €2.66 billion in loans relating to offices, €2.91 billion in retail, and €2.41 billion in “other investment”.

In addition, €3.7 billion of residential loans were transferred to it and €930 million relating to hotels. There was also €5.3 billion in land and development.

In Britain, office, retail and other investment accounted for €4.48 billion of the loans; residential and hotels comprised €3.1 billion; and land and development €3.18 billion.