Firm behind Project Eagle loan portfolio to be wound up
National Asset Management Agency
's (Nama) controversial Project Eagle deal expect to wind it up next year, according to its latest accounts.
Promontoria Eagle, the company used by US investor
Cerberus Capital Management
to buy loans to mostly Northern Ireland-based borrowers from Nama in 2014, collected £526,606 (€626,000) from those debts last year, returns to the Republic's Companies' Registration Office show.
Directors Donal O'Sullivan and David Greene state that the company expects to collect the outstanding loans within 12 months from May of this year, when they signed Promontoria Eagle's latest accounts, after which time the company will no longer be active.
'As a result it is the intention of the directors to wind down and liquidate the company following the realisation of the company's remaining assets,' they say.
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Nama criticised over handling of 'success fee' in €1.6 billion Project Eagle sale after seven-year inquiry
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'The directors expect this to occur within 12 months from the approval of the financial statements.'
The accounts show that Promontoria Eagle lost £592,702 last year, following a profit of £362,850 in 2023.
Cerberus paid Nama €1.6 billion for Northern Ireland-linked property loans worth a total of €6 billion in April 2014, giving the US investment giant the right to collect the debts or take ownership of the assets against which they were secured.
Following a Dáil
Committee of Public Accounts
inquiry sparked by a row over the deal, the State's Comptroller and Auditor General found that Nama could have secured €220 million more for the loans.
However, a subsequent commission of inquiry headed by solicitor Susan Gilvarry found the agency got the best price available.
Cerberus was an active buyer of property loans from banks and Nama in the years following a financial crash in 2008 that threatened to leave the State insolvent.
The US firm generally channelled finance to Irish companies established to hold the loans, such as Promontoria Eagle, through subsidiaries in the Netherlands.
Cerberus used a combination of its own cash and loans from international banks to pay for its Irish activities.
It then loaned this money to its companies in the Republic, allowing it take advantage of tax breaks on interest repayments given to property holding companies. The Oireachtas subsequently changed the law to end those tax breaks.
Controversy erupted over Project Eagle in 2015, when it emerged that Ian Coulter, managing partner of Belfast solicitors' firm Tughans, transferred €7 million in fees from the transaction to an Isle of Man bank account without his firm's knowledge.
Mr Coulter transferred the cash back to the firm and resigned, leading to claims that political and business figures in the North were to benefit from the cash.
The row led to a criminal investigation in the North and the Committee of Public Accounts inquiry in the Republic.
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