Anglo seeks approval for sale of $19bn loans in US

A bankruptcy judge in the US has been asked by IBRC to approve the sale of loans with nominal balances totalling more than $19bn (€13.75bn).

The proposed purchasers of the US assets include affiliates of Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Lone Star Funds, according to an filing on Tuesday by the liquidator of Anglo Irish Bank, which became IBRC in 2011, in bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware.

Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised in January 2009. IBRC filed for creditor protection in Delaware in August to protect its US holdings during the wind-down.

The liquidator, Kieran Wallace, asked the judge to consider approving the loan sales at a May 13 hearing.

The sales are to go ahead as Irish commercial property values rose the most since 2006 in the first quarter as the economy improves and international companies seek to lease more space.

The average value of shops, offices and warehouses climbed 5% from the end of last year, London-based Investment Property Databank said. Total return was 7.2%, the most since the second quarter of 2006.

Consumer confidence rose to a seven-year high this month and the unemployment rate has fallen for 21 months in a row to 11.8%. Total returns in Ireland in the year through March were 19.4%, the most of any market tracked by IPD.

Offices led other property types with an 8.4% total return. Industrial properties, little changed over the quarter, were the weakest.

Returns were driven by “increased stability in the Irish economy, considerable demand from both domestic and international investors,” Ray Hanley, chairman of the valuation group at the Society of Chartered Surveyors’ Ireland, said.

Mr Hanley also cited the extension of capital gains tax relief in 2014 and overseas firms “establishing or extending their European bases in Ireland.”

— Bloomberg