THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency has denied that it plans to complete the sell-off of £9 billion worth of British properties by 2013 after fears were raised that the market could be flooded with major sales following remarks by a senior Nama executive in London this week.
Speaking on Tuesday, Graham Emmett, head of lending and corporate finance at the agency, said that the UK was “a more liquid” market than Ireland and one “where we can achieve our near-term aim of repaying 25 per cent of the Nama bonds by 2013”.
Speaking during a conference organised by commercial property firm DTZ, he said: “Thus we plan to try and exit the UK exposures in the next two to three years, through borrower-led asset sales and refinancing.”
The timescale laid out by Mr Emmett is significantly shorter than the one outlined by Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh last month, when he said that the agency intended to sell just a quarter of its UK portfolio by 2013.
Last night, a Nama spokesman said that “too much attention has been given to specific comments” and that it “may hold on to some assets for a longer time”, adding that the timescale would be set “by the appetite in any market to acquire assets at reasonable prices”.
In his speech, Mr Emmett said the majority of its UK portfolio were in London and the south-east, including “some really good quality prime investment and development sites”.
Nama has just 150 staff dealing with the debt on its books, compared with 800 employed for the same task by Lloyds and RBS, he said. “We may appear to the outside world to be doing this on a bit of a shoestring, but we are certainly gaining serious traction with a viable Nama business plan and beginning to deliver.”
Properties to be sold include the Citigroup Tower in Canary Wharf, once bought by Derek Quinlan, the Louis Vuitton shop on Bond Street and the landmark 23 Savile Row office block in Mayfair.
Nama also controls the Odeon Cinema site in Leicester Square, the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Shoreditch, a shopping centre in Ealing, west London, and up to a dozen apartment blocks in London’s Docklands.
Responding to Mr Emmett’s remarks about a 2013 timetable, DTZ executive Fergus Keane said Nama was correct to be focusing on London for quick sales because the commercial market in the city remains strong.
“You’ve got to remember Nama has a duty to the taxpayer and it has to get a return. There has been a lot of uncertainty over the last two or three years and I think they’ve said quite rightly, let’s get on with it and get some loot in. Their view is the UK market is strong,” he said.
Nama, which is now one of London’s most significant property-owners, bought the loans outstanding on properties in the city for £9.9 billion, while it has already got back £3.3 billion from selling Claridges Hotel and other assets, along with the refinancing of Battersea power station.
Nama bought €72.3 billion of loans at an average discount of 58 per cent after it was created to deal with the crisis in the Irish banking system. Its UK loan portfolio has a face value of €19 billion, although the properties on which they are secured are currently valued at €9 billion.
