THE NATIONAL ASSET Management Agency sold twenty-six properties with ‘no evidence of open marketing’, a new report has found.
The state’s public spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General, carried out the value-for-money report into the activities of the bad bank in the period from 2010-2012.
In its report, the C&AG said that it was satisfied that the reasons supplied by NAMA for the lack of open marketing were “reasonable” in 15 cases, with sales of €151 million in value.
The sales of six other properties to state bodies in Ireland or Great Britain, with gross proceeds of €12.1 million, were not openly marketed either.
In a final loan, the report found that “there was no evidence of open marketing or obtaining market assurance”.
Bid
The report found that in one instance, a property in Ireland was sold without an open contest for €27 million.
The property in question had been the subject of an eight-week marketing campaign, with a winner chosen after this process later withdrawing.
The property was eventually sold to a new bidder, not originally on the shortlist, at the same price five months later.
However, the C&AG found that:
No evidence was provided to show how the purchaser was selected. Nor was there any evidence of the asset being returned to the market after the failed initial competition.
NAMA said it felt that the price for the property would have been lower had it been returned to the market.
Spending and rental mystery
NAMA was unable to say exactly what the returns were on properties that have been sold.
This is because it doesn’t have the IT system to keep track of capital or other funding provided to individual properties, or to calculate how much is coming in in rent from individual properties.
As such, the report found that “it is not possible to calculate the returns that were earned on properties that have been sold”.
NAMA had disposed of around €10.5 billion worth of property in the UK and Ireland by the end of 2013.
The C&AG looked at examined the sale of 144 properties as part of its review, which were sold for around €1 billion overall.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say