Hail Nama, full of grace

WHEN YOUR stock falls sharply, blame the hedgies. It’s often the stock response from beleaguered companies and governments.

Anglo Irish Bank certainly tried it. Last year the bank complained its stock was the target of short-sellers (investors who profit on shares falling). How right they were – plenty of short-selling hedge funds made a killing.

At the launch of the State’s bad bank, sorry, the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), on Wednesday, Michael Somers, the chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), said the cost of Irish Government bonds (as compared to equivalent German securities) had risen in February and last month due to short-selling hedge funds.

“Because our debt is so relatively small, it is quite easy for a hedge fund to take a position against Irish bonds and indeed to short them,” said Dr Somers.

“But they can only short them just so far because you can get caught on the wrong side of a short operation and lose a fortune.

“We think that hedge funds may have given up on us for the moment. We have seen our yields fall a bit over the last two weeks.”

This is not bad thing, given that the Government has to raise a further €14 billion of a record €25 billion in medium- and long-term funding this year to fund the State.

Incidentally, Nama or Naama is a female name in Israel. There were two women called Naama in the Bible, one was a descendant of Cain, who, of course, killed Abel.

It means a godsend in Arabic and in Sanskrit is a tool of meditation. In Hebrew, the name means pleasantness, graciousness and loveliness, although there is clearly nothing pleasant or lovely about the State buying up to €90 billion of loans, including the dodgiest property debts, from the banks.