Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency could be wound up as early as late 2017 or 2018 with a €1bn (£716m) surplus, Frank Daly, the agency’s chairman told a banking inquiry on Tuesday.
The bank expects to pay back €30.2bn of senior debt to the Irish government by this time, having originally been due to wind up the “bad bank” in 2020.
Nama, funded by the government, paid €31.8bn for €74bn of loans from lenders in 2009 and 2010 following the collapse of the country’s banking system. It currently has 600 debtors on its books but hopes to reduce this number to 150 by the end of 2015 through sales of smaller loans over the course of the year.
Loans with a face value of €47bn remain unsold.
