Anglo Irish takes hit on state loans
ANGLO Irish Bank is expected to transfer a second tranche of loans to the country’s state-run National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), or “bad bank”, at a discount of just over 60 per cent.
NAMA will buy the €8bn (£6.5bn) of loans at a value of €4.8bn, it is understood, while it is thought that the discount was 61 per cent but put the nominal value of the loans at €7bn.
Fears over the escalating cost of bailing out Anglo Irish, which was nationalised in 2009, have spooked international investors and sent Irish borrowing costs soaring.
Ireland’s central bank governor said last week that Anglo would end up costing the taxpayer €25bn.
Excluding the latest tranche from Anglo, NAMA has so far bought property loans with a nominal value of €20.5bn from its banking sector at around half the value they were written at, reflecting a collapse in the local property market lending standards. NAMA, which is also buying loans from four other institutions, said it will complete a third tranche of loan purchases by the end of September.