The High Court has begun hearing a challenge by Treasury Holdings against the National Assets Management Agency’s decision to appoint receivers to some of its property assets in Ireland.
The court was told today the agency made a “dramatic” decision last December to proceed with appointing receivers over assets of various Treasury Holdings companies without telling the developer which was then in advanced negotiations with investors.
Treasury claims the proposed receiverships could threaten 400 direct jobs here, could result in no further development of its Spencer Dock site in Dublin; could close the RitzCarlton Hotel in Co Wicklow, could lead to the closure of the company which owns Dublin’s National Convention Centre and could collapse the Sligo Town Centre project.
Nama acquired Treasury debts with a face value of some €1.5 billion in 2010 but Treasury claims, while accepting it is “balance sheet insolvent”, it could have continued to operate had terms been agreed with the agency and could have advanced plans to achieve a “once off sale” to investors of practically all its loans.
Treasury claims an investor, Macquarie Corporate and Asset Finance Ltd, offered a “generous” purchase price of €622 million for its loan portfolio while another “more complex” bid from Hines offered “a potential total return” to Nama and the Spencer Dock banking syndicate of some €600 million. Both those proposals required “significant” vendor financing by Nama, Treasury said.
Both those offers were comparable with a €805 million offer from US real estate firm CIM approved by the agency’s board last year - which ultimately did not proceed- when allowing for the fact Battersea power station and other loans were not part of the portfolio being sold, Treasury said.
The “major benefits” to Nama and the State if such a commercial deal was concluded would “far outweigh” the alternative scenario offered by a group receivership, it claims.
Treasury’s goal was to exit Nama via such a once-off sale and it fears the agency’s actions in moving to appoint receivers will result in a piecemeal sale and the break up of its “valuable portfolio”, Michael Cush SC, for Treasury said.
Mr Cush was opening a hearing before Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan of Treasury’s application for leave to bring a judicial review challenge to the actions of the agency and for injunctions preventing the receivers acting pending the outcome of any such challenge.
The hearing continues tomorrow.
