Ireland

Europe’s largest investment bank Deutsche Bank has emerged on the list of bidders this week for one of the National Asset Management Agency’s last big portfolio sales, the Irish Times reported. The Frankfurt-based bank joins a joint offer from Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs and CarVal, a US investor in distressed assets, on Nama’s sale of two portfolios which have a combined nominal value of €4.7 billion, according to sources. Others bidders include Lone Star and Cerberus.

Creditors to the failed lender Anglo Irish Bank are set to receive their first payment within months after its liquidators built up about €2.1 billion of cash following the sale of most of its assets, according to sources. While the prospect of junior bondholders in the bank, who refused to share in its losses, being repaid the €285 million they’re owed has increased in the past year, they are unlikely to receive anything until at least 2018, the sources said. More senior creditors, led by the government itself, will be dealt with first.

Motor insurers are growing increasingly concerned at the lack of Government action to tackle pressure on premiums due to the €90 million collapse of Setanta Insurance two years ago, the Irish Times reported. Major insurance firms are now pressing for urgent steps to settle serious legal questions over their liability for any future failures after two court rulings found the industry-funded Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) should bear the cost of 1,750 outstanding claims by and against Setanta clients.

It is the most bitter industrial relations dispute Ireland has seen for many years. For the past few weeks, a series of two-day strikes on the Dublin tram system, known as Luas, has left 90,000 commuters walking to work. And there may be worse to come, the Financial Times reported. After an uncompromising exchange this week between Transdev, the French transport company that operates Luas, and the Siptu trade union that represents tram drivers, an all-out strike now threatens to shut the service indefinitely.

Small businesses whose bank loans were bundled into portfolios and sold to “vulture” funds have been advised to consider going into examinership to protect themselves should the funds call in their loans, the Irish Times reported. Hughes Blake accountants, which specialises in examinerships for small businesses, said seeking court protection from the funds could be a “valid tactical maneouvre”. It said many of the funds behave differently from each other so businesses should familiarise themselves with the approach of the fund that bought their loan.

Small Irish firms whose loans have been sold to foreign “vulture funds” may face millions of euro in tax charges and penalties from Revenue, the Irish Times reported. This comes after it was discovered that the acquisition of distressed loan books, typically by special purpose vehicles (SPVs), can trigger a demand for withholding tax on the interest paid on individual loans, for which the borrower is liable. Companies must generally deduct 20 per cent tax on payment of interest under Irish law.

Euro-area bank supervisors are looking at countries like Ireland with a history of tackling soured loans for hints on how to work out the €1.2 trillion bad debt pile that’s plaguing banks across the euro zone, the Irish Times reported. Non-performing loans remain a top priority for the European Central Bank, Daniele Nouy and Sabine Lautenschlaeger, who lead the ECB’s supervisory board, said on Wednesday. As there’s no silver bullet, supervisors are settling in for years of work, learning from the countries with experience of the problem.

The Central Bank has issued a robust defence of its contentious home loan caps, saying commercial banks and mortgage brokers are unable on their own to uphold “prudent” credit standards, the Irish Times reported. The loan caps will neither add to nor relieve the shortage of new homes, the Central Bank said. It added the rules would contribute to a shift in housing demand and supply towards rental accommodation.

Bank of Ireland’s UK subsidiary will not offer mortgages for more than £500,000, according to Des Crowley, chief executive of the division, the Irish Times reported. He said this was designed to reduce the bank’s exposure to modestly-sized, multimillion-pound homes in expensive areas, notably in London. “We’re conservative in the London market, where it is quite heated and it is difficult for first-time buyers in particular to get on to the housing ladder,” he told the Daily Telegraph following the release of the bank’s UK results to the British media.

When Ireland’s “bad bank” announced this week that it would redeem €2.5bn of its debt nine months early, the news should have helped to confirm the country’s emergence as a model of post-austerity restructuring, the Financial Times reported. With the Irish economy growing at 7.8 per cent annually after years of recession, Nama, as the bank is known, can claim to have played its part in the recovery.