NAMA could acquire €30bn in foreign loans

THE State may end up taking over almost €30 billion of high-risk British and US property loans in its bid to restore Irish banks to health.

Once established, the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) will buy roughly €90bn of property loans from the banks. The objective is to remove the riskiest loans from the banks’ balance sheets in order to return them to health.

But some €28bn of the €90bn loans which the state agency looks set to acquire relate to property developments in Britain and the US embarked on by Irish developers.