NAMA British loan sell-off

NAMA could sell off all of its British property loans within two years, according to its head of lending and corporate finance Graham Emmett, marking a rapid acceleration of its sales plans there.

The decision would bring about €9 billion of property onto the market there, compared to the €2.5bn of loans it was originally planning to sell by the end of 2013.

A NAMA spokesman said it would “explore opportunities to dispose of assets in all markets over the coming years and would not restrict its disposals agenda to any one area or country”.

NAMA will sell off its UK loan book by pushing for consensual sales with borrowers or refinancing loans with new banks where possible, Property Week reported.

Selling off the loans now would allow NAMA benefit from a shortage of investment property on the market in London in particular, which has pushed up prices because there is significant demand for high quality assets. By contrast, the UK banks have yet to decide what to do with most of the bad property loans on their books.

“When we look at what Lloyds and RBS are doing, and they are of a similar size to us in terms of par loans, we have 150 direct staff based in Dublin and they have 800,” Emmett told the conference.