Nama has generated €46bn in cash since 2009

Nama said on Wednesday that it has generated a total of €46.1 billion in cash since it was set up more than a decade ago.

It follows on from the agency’s chief executive, Brendan McDonagh, telling Bloomberg in an interview a day earlier that it is on track to beat its €4 billion lifetime surplus forecast and may deliver a cash return to the State close to €4.8 billion.

The then government set up Nama in 2009 to purge the State’s banks of more than €70 billion of risky commercial property loans. The agency paid more than €30 billion for the assets, going on to sell loans and real estate to some of the world’s biggest investors, who moved into Ireland in the wake of the nation’s 2008 crash.

Nama confirmed last month that it plans to hand over €1 billion of surplus cash to the Government this year, having transferred an initial €2 billion to last June.

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The latest quarterly statement on its affairs, published on Wednesday, states that it retained debtor loans valued at €1.04 billion, €166 million of trading properties and €285 million of investment properties on its books as of the end of September.

Nama posted a €40 million profit for the third quarter of 2020, following on from a net loss of €9 million for the first half of last year.

Total cash generated between January and September amounted to €455 million, with an additional €300 million coming into the agency in the final three months of the year, it said.

Housing units

The number of housing units delivered directly by Nama’s residential delivery programme since 2014 totalled 12,450 by end 2020, it said last month. This indicates that 750 homes were delivered last year, when comparing figures against those provided in the end-2019 statement.

A further 6,550 units have been delivered on former Nama-secured sites, which benefited from Nama asset management or funding. That is 1,450 more units than outlined in the previous annual review.

Nama said on December 22nd that developer Johnny Ronan and US investment firm Oaktree had signed up to buy an 80 per cent stake in the former Irish Glass Bottle site and an adjoining plot in Dublin, which is earmarked to deliver up to 3,800 homes. Some 25 per cent of these will be social and affordable housing, as well as 1 million sq ft (92,903 sq m) of commercial space.

Sources said the winning bid for the controlling interest came to a higher-than-expected €200 million, which put an overall value on the 37-acre site, held through a company called Pembroke Ventures, at €250 million.

Nama said on Wednesday it expects competition approval for the venture, in which it will retain a 20 per cent stake, by the end of June. “Nama is satisfied that this outcome has achieved the best financial return from this key site, while facilitating its future development potential,” it said.