Not waiting for NAMA

If the government thought that all news dumps had been safely accomplished of a Thursday, they won’t want to look at this evening’s business news.  Because it looks like the first big property developer implosion is under way.  ACC Bank has indicated that it is unwilling to sit tight with the other banks in hopes of recovering a loan to the Liam Carroll group of companies and is pushing for receivership of its direct borrowers within the group.

Court proceedings reveal an extremely messy set up in which some companies (including foreign-registered) borrow on behalf of the group and then parcel out the cash as needed.  You have to read down a bit in the RTE story to see how big the numbers get –

The court heard that AIB is the largest lender to the group, holding 40.8% of its €1.1 billion debt. It is followed by Bank of Scotland Ireland (26.8%), ACC (10.7%), Bank of Ireland (9.3%), Ulster Bank (6.7%), Anglo Irish Bank, KBC and EBS.

Presumably these banks would have much rathered dump these loans into NAMA at something close to face value rather than having a receiver figure out what the underlying assets are actually worth.