ANGLO IRISH Bank has retained the real estate consultancy division of FTI to advise the bank on bids for its $10.5 billion (€7 billion) US loan book, due for sale shortly.
The bank is being advised by Bruce Schonbraun, the head of real estate at the FTI Real Estate Advisory Services in New York.
There are understood to be about a dozen cash-rich private equity firms circling the US loan book with a view to buying it in part or in full, as well as large banks and some smaller players.
The bank awarded the contract to sell the loan book to the US property broker and investment bank Eastdil Secured, a subsidiary of US bank Well Fargo, last week.
The loan book is one of the largest portfolios to come on the market in recent years at a time of increased activity in the sector.
Mr Schonbraun is familiar with the Irish bank assets. He travelled to Ireland with FTI restructuring specialist Ron Greenspan in March 2009 for meetings with the Government and State authorities.
Irish businessman Declan Kelly, who sold public relations firm Financial Dynamics to FTI, acts as a consultant to the US firm. Mr Kelly was US economic envoy to Northern Ireland until last month.
Anglo has worked closely with FTI in the past, most recently on the restructuring of debt at the Quinn Group, the business founded by Seán Quinn. FTI represented the group’s bondholders in a review of the group’s finances.
Discussions are still ongoing between Anglo and Eastdil on the best way to sell the US loan book to secure the best price for the assets – whether to break up the loans into portfolios to be sold off separately or to sell it in one block.
Among the options under consideration are the sale of the loans by splitting the portfolio into performing and non-performing loans to be sold off separately and the division of the book by sector, selling the retail, office and hospitality loans in separate tranches.
Another possibility is that certain loans linked to high-profile properties might be sold off separately, such as the loan on the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Boston.
Industry sources with knowledge of the loan book put the possible purchase price at between 70 and 80 cent in the euro.
Anglo took €1.9 billion in specific bad debt provisions against the US loan book between September 2008 and December 2010, according to the bank’s accounts.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan met senior financial executives with interests in debt market investments in New York yesterday to discuss Government’s strategy to return to the international bond markets next year.
Among the institutions he met were JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital. While Mr Noonan is not involved in the sale of the Anglo loan book, he may meet potential purchasers of the loans during his four-day US trip, his spokesman said.
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