Nama's head of portfolio management, John Mulcahy, formerly executive chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle in Ireland, wowed an audience of property specialists in Wales last week at the annual RESI conference, described as a "two-day networking event for the residential property, public sector and house building markets", organised by Property Week.

Peppered among high-powered speakers from the likes of Berkeley Group, Grosvenor, Great Portland Estates, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Lloyds TSB and other big names, Mulcahy made the audience sit up and take notice when he told them that Nama had a £15 billion portfolio in the UK, including £10 billion in London alone. At the conference, he was not speaking in the session headed “Solutions for distressed assets” (which might have been apt, given Nama’s role), but in another session, more nebulously titled “New partnerships for residential investment”, alongside Grosvenor chief executive Peter Vernon, Grainger executive director Nick Jopling and Allsop insolvency partner Simon Davidson.

In a discussion on the causes and effects of recent rioting in London, Mulcahy jocosely suggested that one of the contributory factors was flat-screen TVs – because they are so portable. As he pointed out, there was no way looters would have been able to lug so many of the much heavier older TV sets out of the shops. Food for thought indeed.