The National Asset Management Agency has approved the sale of art, jewellery, shares and other non-real estate assets worth almost €500m, as it chases the debts of real-estate investors.
Bloomberg reports that NAMA approved disposals of non-property assets worth more than €486m, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said in a written answer to a Dáil question on Thursday.
Set up in 2009 by the State to purge banks of risky commercial real estate loans, NAMA has seized and sold debtors’ assets when they have been unable to meet repayments.
The bad bank now expects to make a profit of more than €2bn over its lifespan.
NAMA, which paid about €31.6bn for loans with a face value of about €74bn, acquired loans related to 850 debtors.
In 2011 the agency raised about €2m from the sale of art seized from Derek Quinlan, a one-time tax official, whose investment company led the purchase of the Claridges, Connaught and Savoy hotels in London in 2004.
