PAC to widen Project Eagle loan investigation

The chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), John McGuinness, said yesterday that public interest in Project Eagle was so big that the PAC now will widen its probe into the “substantial uplift” in market prices of property loans following auctions in the North and other portfolios by Nama.

Mr McGuinness said his own information pointed to significant gains in the value of the loans, formerly owned by taxpayers, after Nama sold them to for €1.6 m to US fund Cerberus as recently as last year in an auction codenamed Project Eagle.

The sale to Cerberus was controversial as rival bidder Pimco left the bidding at a late stage after revealing its legal firms planned to pay a former Nama adviser in the North for his work on the Project Eagle deal.