US hedge fund snaps up Irish loans on back of brighter outlook

Marathon Asset Management's Bruce Richards says his firm is ramping up investment in Europe on bets that central-bank easing, a depreciating euro and the plunge in oil prices will buoy the region's growth.

The hedge fund, which manages about $13 billion, last week bought a non-performing loan from the National Asset Management Agency here.

Backed by 588 multi-family units in Dublin, the loan marks Marathon’s 12th such purchase in two years in a country whose economic growth, Mr Richards said, outpaces that of its European counterparts.

"We're big-time bullish," Mr Richards, Marathon's chief executive officer, said in an interview on Bloomberg "Market Makers" .

"We continue to buy loans. We've been very, very busy." While US equities have gained just 1.6 per cent this year, Germany's benchmark index has surged 26 per cent, fueled by European Central Bank stimulus, the US dollar's ascent to a 12-year high versus the euro and a 52 per cent plunge in oil prices since June.

Those factors, along with calls for accelerated euro-area growth by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, make the region "one of the great opportunities globally," Mr Richards said.

Bloomberg