Sale of €22bn in IRBC assets to begin next week

The sale of assets worth more than €22 billion by the liquidators of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, which is to be completed by the end of the year, kicks off on Monday of next week.

Parties that have expressed an interest in the loans being sold and have signed confidentiality agreements will start getting detailed information on the first group of loans from that date, and will be given a short period to make indicative bids.

The initiation of the sales process for the so-called Project Evergreen loans will be quickly followed by the beginning of an identical process in relation to three other loan types.

Project Evergreen involves Irish-originated corporate loans to trading entities such as Arnotts and Topaz with 50 "borrower groups" and loans totalling €3.5 billion.

The other three groups of loans have been called Rock, Sand and Stone and involve, respectively, UK-originated commercial real estate loans, mortgages associated with the former Irish Nationwide, and Irish-originated commercial real-estate loans. The number of borrower groups and the value of the loans, at par, are, respectively: 350 (€7.8 billion); 13,250 (€1.8 billion); and 2,150 (€9.3 billion).

After receiving indicative bids, potential purchasers will be asked for best final bids, and any assets for which satisfactory prices are offered, will then be sold. The liquidators have already given some information that does not identify borrowers to parties that have expressed an interest in the assets they are charged with selling.

The liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG, have been instructed by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to get confidential, independent valuations of the assets by November 30th. The assets must be sold by the liquidators at or above these valuations, and any assets not sold by the end of the year will be transferred to the National Asset Management Agency.

The original borrowers are being kept informed of developments and are being facilitated in making their views known. The process may involve some borrowers expressing views on how their loans might be sold (whether individually or as part of portfolios, for instance), or expressing opposition to the loans being sold to particular purchasers.

The liquidators are taking legal advice on every step in an effort to secure themselves against legal challenges. Businessman Paddy McKillen has initiated legal proceedings aimed at preventing loans being sold to UK businessmen David and Frederick Barclay.

Some borrowers may have been involved in debt write-down and other negotiations with the IBRC which were brought immediately to an end when the Government decided to liquidate the State-owned bank earlier this year. The IBRC was set up to deal with the loans of the INBS and the former Anglo Irish Bank.

The liquidators have already said that they have received strong indications of interest in the assets they have been charged with selling. A spokesman for the liquidators said that they will accept repayment of all loans at par value from debtors who settle all their debts and that they have been encouraging borrowers to do this since soon after their appointment.

Mr Noonan has told the liquidators to sell the assets as expeditiously as possible and not later than December 31st, 2013, “or as soon as practicable thereafter”.

When Nama was set up, toxic property development loans with a book value of €74 billion were transferred to it from Anglo Irish Bank, INBS, the EBS, Bank of Ireland and AIB, with an average discount of 57 per cent.