NAMA will this week decide on the fate of more than 360 borrowers when it concludes the Project Arrow sales process, its largest loan sale. US investment funds Cerberus and Apollo Capital Management last week submitted final bids for the portfolio, which has loans with face value of €7.2bn, secured on more than 2,400 properties.
The Project Arrow sale has been difficult. Goldman Sachs and CarVal, who were joint bidders, pulled out of the process last month.
Apollo was also a doubtful starter in the final bidding for long periods before finally tabling an offer.
The auction also progressed against an increasing stormy background as the authorities in Northern Ireland investigated Project Eagle, a multibillion-euro loan portfolio sold to Cerberus.
The Project Arrow loan portfolio consists of more than 1,600 small loans, none larger than €10m in value, and none with an underlying asset value of more than €5m.
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Most are non-performing and more than one third of the property in the portfolio is in receivership. More than half of the loans are secured on residential property.
The properties in the portfolio are valued at €1.2bn, though the loans are likely to trade at a material discount to the real-estate valuations, reflecting the cost to the buyer of enforcing security.
There have been calls from politicians and estate agents for Nama to abort the sale. Mick Wallace, an independent TD, called for the sale to be suspended pending the outcome of investigations into the Project Eagle sale. The Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers called for the residential properties in Project Arrow to be sold separately.