Nama transfers €350m surplus to exchequer

Move brings total contributed by State-owned bad bank to €4.25 billion to date

Nama is set to wind up by the end of December 2025. Its total contribution to the exchequer is expected to be nearly €5 billion. Photograph: Alan Betson
Nama is set to wind up by the end of December 2025. Its total contribution to the exchequer is expected to be nearly €5 billion. Photograph: Alan Betson

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has transferred an addition €350 million of its surplus to the exchequer, bringing the total contributed by the State-owned bad bank to date to €4.25 billion.

That figure includes €3.85 billion in cash surplus payments and more than €400 million in corporation tax.

Over its lifetime, the agency was expected to transfer €4.5 billion of surplus back to the exchequer. It is set to wind up in the next couple of years, with profits at the agency declining as the size of its loan portfolio shrinks.

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The transfer of the surplus was welcomed by Minister for Finance Michael McGrath, who described it as “another positive step as the agency approaches its orderly wind-down”.

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“When coupled with corporation tax paid of over €400 million, Nama’s overall monetary contribution to the exchequer is expected to total almost €5 billion,” he said.

The agency was established 14 years ago to bail out Irish banks by acquiring their toxic commercial property loans in the wake of the financial crash, and is set to end its operations by the end of December 2025. The agency has also funded or facilitated the delivery of 30,545 new homes since 2015.

Nama paid €32 billion to acquire the loans that led to its existence.

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist