Aug 23 (Reuters) – Anglo Irish Bank [ANGIB.UL] is expected to transfer a second tranche of loans to the country’s state-run National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), or “bad bank”, at a discount of just over 60 percent, newspapers said on Monday.
NAMA will buy the 8 billion euros ($10.25 billion) of loans at a value of 4.8 billion euros, the Irish Times reported, without citing any sources.
The Irish Independent newspaper said the discount was 61 percent but put the nominal value of the loans at 7 billion euros.
A spokesman for NAMA declined to comment. Details of the transfer are expected either Monday or Tuesday.
Fears over the escalating cost of bailing out Anglo Irish, which was nationalised in 2009, have spooked international investors and sent Irish borrowing costs soaring.
Ireland’s central bank governor said last week that Anglo would end up costing the taxpayer 25 billion euros or around 25 percent of gross domestic product.
Excluding the latest tranche from Anglo, NAMA has so far bought property loans with a nominal value of 20.5 billion euros from its banking sector at around half the value they were written at, reflecting a collapse in the local property market and the sector’s weak lending standards. (Reporting by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.7806 Euro)
