The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has moved to take direct ownership of land with potential for 4,000 homes from debtors as part of a tidying up exercise ahead of its wind-down by the end of next year, according to sources.
The so-called bad bank is expected to transfer the land to the Land Development Agency (LDA) next year before its lifespan comes to an end and its residual assets are moved to a new resolution unit being set up in the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), the sources said.
Nama disclosed in its latest annual strategy statement, published on Thursday, that it had recently acquired “certain key sites with significant value-add potential and capacity for circa 4,000 residential units”, without giving details on the background.
The agency, led by chief executive Brendan McDonagh, said it will manage the sites until Minister for Finance Jack Chambers directs it to transfer the land “to an appropriate State body next year”. Sources confirmed the LDA was the most likely body.
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A spokesman for Nama declined to comment beyond the content of the report.
It is hoped that Nama’s taking direct control of land previously held by certain debtors may make it easier to deliver homes on the sites.
They account for a third of over 12,000 potential homes that Nama has previously disclosed were capable of being built over time on land in the hands of debtors.
Broken down, planning permission has been secured for more than 3,000 units, while planning authorities are currently weighing planning applications for a further 3,600 homes. Land with capacity for more than 5,500 homes is not currently zoned.
The move on land covering the potential 4,000 homes comes as Nama also prepares to take over the remaining assets of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) in early 2025, before it, in turn, completes its own wind-down by the end of that year. IBRC carries the remnants of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide and has been in liquidation since 2013.
The Government plans to move the remnants of both organisations into a new resolution unit to be set up within the NTMA.
Nama has facilitated the delivery of 39,377 new homes over the past decade.
“Of these, 14,336 homes have been delivered directly by Nama, either though the provision of funding directly to debtors and receivers or facilitating development via licence agreement or joint venture,” it said in the strategy statement. “A further 25,041 homes have been delivered indirectly on sites for which Nama had funded planning permission, legal costs, holding costs or enabling works but which were subsequently sold, or where the associated loans were subsequently sold or refinanced.”
Nama expects to make a €4.8 billion lifetime surplus and will have paid some €400 million in corporation tax to the exchequer before it is wound down.
Des Carville, head of the Department of Finance’s bank shareholding and financial advisory unit, recalled at an Oireachtas finance committee last month that some officials from Ireland’s former bailout troika forecast 11 years ago – towards the end of the International Monetary Fund/EU/European Central Bank rescue programme – that Nama would have a €10 billion shortfall at the end of its life.
Nama reported a €53 million profit in the first half of this year, according to its latest quarterly report, also published on Thursday.
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