Cerberus firm to collect on last Project Eagle loans this year

The company used by US vulture fund Cerberus to buy the Project Eagle portfolio of loans from the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has said it expects the outstanding debts to be collected within the next 12 months.

It comes just two months after it was announced that the deadline for the final report of a commission of investigation into the controversy surrounding the sale of those loans had been extended again to later this year.

Accounts filed by Promontoria Eagle, the Cerberus subsidiary that acquired the portfolio of loans for €1.6 billion in 2014, this week show that the company swung to a £382,647 (€437,400) loss in 2021 as its income from collections plunged from £1.5 million in 2020 to just under £344,000.

The decline reflects a drop in the number of loans left to be collected with profits declining steadily from as much as £7.9 million in 2019.

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In a note attached to the accounts, the directors said: “Given the limited remaining number of outstanding loans, management deems that the outstanding loans are expected to be collected within 12 months of the date of signing the financial statements. After 12 months from the date of signing the financial statements, it is expected that there will be no activity remaining for the company.”

They said it was expected the company would be wound down once the remaining assets are realised.

The fund’s purchase of Project Eagle, a portfolio of loans granted by banks in the Republic to borrowers in Northern Ireland, became the subject of parliamentary inquiries on either side of the Border and a police investigation.

It is also the subject of a long-running commission of investigation, set up by the Government in 2017 and originally due to report the following year.

The commission was initially headed by High Court judge Mr Justice John Cooke. Publication of the report was deferred following his death in April 2022, after which the commission’s solicitor, Susan Gilvarry, was appointed to complete the work and submit it to the relevant parties before its final publication.

The deadline was originally extended to February of this year. However, it has now been extended again until at least November.

In an interim report published on the Department of the Taoiseach’s website on February 8th, Ms Gilvarry said that efforts to “limit legal fees incurred” had meant that the commission had not initially sought out the services of a senior counsel. She described this as “exceptional when one compares this commission to other commissions of similar size and complexity”.

Ms Gilvarry said that the review of Mr Justice Cooke’s draft report after his death had “proved to be a complex logistical task”.

Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan, a former member of Nama’s Northern Ireland advisory committee, and solicitor Ian Coulter, one-time managing partner of the law firm that worked on the deal, Tughans, both face fraud charges as a result of a police investigation in the North.

Both men have denied the charges. The trial had been expected to take place this year after a number of delays.