Most of the money held in trust for two customers at a separate firm run by investment manager Harry Cassidy was used to meet property debts of his failed investment firm, Custom House Capital, the Irish Times reported. According to the report by two Central Bank inspectors, Mr Cassidy, the chief executive of CHC, said he managed “€7 million or €8 million” in client trusts through a firm called ARF Management.

The High Court has appointed a liquidator to the Dublin investment firm Custom House Capital after Central Bank inspectors found “systemic and deliberate misuse” of more than €56 million of client funds, the Irish Times reported. A 198-page report by two inspectors into the company described “a sort of Irish Ponzi scheme”, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan said. The judge directed the report to be referred to the Garda, Minister for Justice, Director of Public Prosecutions, Revenue Commissioners and the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

High-profile house builder Manor Park Homes is in receivership with debts of €170 million after the company’s directors told its bank that the business could not repay the money, the Irish Times reported. Businessman Joe Moran and his family own Manor Park, which made headlines eight years ago when it bought former taoiseach Charles Haughey’s estate in Kinsealy, Co Dublin, for €45 million.

Irish fashion retailer A|wear has been sold to a UK group called Hilco, which specialises in distressed restructurings, the Irish Times reported. No financial details were released yesterday although Hilco said it would provide A|wear with “extended working capital facilities to facilitate the business’s financial needs”. A|wear was sold by Brown Thomas in 2007 for a reported €70 million to a consortium comprising UK private equity group Alchemy Partners and management, who took a 20 per cent stake in the business. The deal was backed with debt provided by Ulster Bank.

Former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm has lost a bid to withhold $500,000 (€364,000) from his creditors in his US bankruptcy case by failing in a claim that his seaside property in Cape Cod was his main home, the Irish Times reported. A Boston court ruled yesterday that Mr Drumm was not entitled to claim a “homestead exemption” for $500,000 on his multimillion-dollar house at Stage Neck Road in Chatham, Massachusetts.

Credit unions should pay into a new fund to help “stabilise” the sector, in which 27 institutions are in serious need of capital, a Government-appointed group has advised, the Irish Times reported. The Commission on Credit Unions, in its interim report, has also called for enhanced regulation of the movement, as well as a greater emphasis on internal audit and risk management. “The regulatory framework is not as well developed as in most mature credit union movements,” said commission chairman Prof Donal McKillop yesterday.

Anglo Irish Bank and lenders to the Quinn Group have agreed the terms of a deal to lower the debt on the business to €475 million from €760 million. The changes, which will be voted on by creditors, reduce the group’s annual interest bill to €40 million from €60 million. The Quinn Group is the industrial conglomerate formerly owned by Seán Quinn and his family. The fresh restructuring means that Anglo, a 75 per cent shareholder, will have more debt to be paid off before recouping value from the recovery of the group.

As many as 10,000 people could see ownership of their homes transferred to local authorities under a scheme proposed by the Inter-Departmental Working Group on Mortgage Arrears, which published its report this morning, the Irish Times reported. Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the move was one of a number of options which would be considered as part of efforts to cure the debt crisis.

New bankruptcy provisions reducing the period of applying for discharge from bankruptcy from 12 to five years and providing for the automatic discharge of bankruptcy after 12 years have been commenced by the Minister for Justice, the Irish Times reported. Alan Shatter announced that the new measures, contained in the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011, came into force Monday. Other, mainly technical, improvements in bankruptcy law have been in force since the beginning of August.

The National Asset Management Agency, Ireland's state-run "bad bank", has put two loan portfolios worth a total of 800 million euros ($1.1 billion) on the market, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday. The source told Reuters that NAMA was being advised by property consultancy Savills on the disposal of about 200 million euros of loans that had been made to housing and hotel developer Donal Mulryan. Separately, real estate consultancy CBRE was marketing about 600 million euros worth of loans to property developer Cyril Dennis. NAMA, CBRE and Savills all declined to comment.