Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency’s deal to sell a €600m (£485.6m) loan portfolio to Orion Capital Managers has collapsed following six months of negotiations.
Nama and the opportunity fund manager were unable to agree a price for the portfolio of loans extended to property entrepreneur Cyril Dennis. Orion was selected as preferred purchaser in December, with a bid of around €200m, a discount of two-thirds to the portfolio’s face value.
Nama is now understood to be approaching underbidders to strike up a fresh deal for the loans, which are secured against brownfield development sites in the UK and Europe.
When the portfolio was first put up for sale in October, the family office of Natie Kirsh and Augur Buchler, a real estate company associated with investment bank Templewood, were both linked to a potential deal.
The portfolio contains 20 UK, 15 French and five Spanish and Italian loans, written between 2004 and 2008.
The diversity and risk profile of the portfolio may have prompted Orion to rethink the deal, according to some observers.
“This is without doubt a problem portfolio. The underlying assets are almost exclusively development sites, and are located in several different countries,” commented a source who was close to the deal.
It is understood that Orion was also keen to bring debt into the deal, which Nama wanted to conclude on an all-equity basis.
The portfolio is one of two large groups of non-performing loans that Nama put up for sale last year. It has since sold a £216m portfolio of UK development loans extended to Donal Mulryan’s West Properties to Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing.
CBRE is advising Nama on the sale.
? Kennedy Wilson and Deutsche Bank have been selected to buy a €360m loan portfolio from Lloyds. The partners are paying around €61m for the Project Prince portfolio of defaulted Irish loans.
