It is a turning point, symbolic for Ireland : the structure created in 2009, after the financial crisis, to mop up the toxic mortgage, including real estate, banks, saved from bankruptcy with the help of Europe and the IMF, will meet its latest deadline. The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) announced on Friday that she was going to repay by the end of the month the final tranche of € 500 million of bonds on the 30.2 billion euros of debt guaranteed by the government. And this three years ahead of schedule. A way to turn definitively the page of the financial crisis that had plunged the country into a severe recession.
“Today, we have reached the main objective of the NAMA, a goal that many believed unreachable at the start,” said Frank Daly, the chairman of the agency.
Out of the crisis
This “bad bank” had bought for more than € 74 billion of loans to institutions irish sealed by the bursting of a housing bubble, to a depreciated value of 31.8 billion. He still has a portfolio of 4 billion euros of assets to give in “by maximizing the return on investment,” and a bond debt of private by 1.6 billion euros to be repaid by march 2020. The agency has reaffirmed its objective to generate “a profit of € 3 billion for the taxpayers of ireland.”
The irish minister of Finance, Paschal Donohoe, also welcomed the news:
“It is a remarkable achievement and an historic day for Ireland and its economic recovery after the financial crisis in which we move away a little more each day,” he said.
The output of the aid plan international at the end of 2013, Ireland recorded a sustained growth (+5.8% over one year). She has even announced early September that it would be reimbursed by anticipation in the balance of loans granted by the IMF at the time.
