KPMG shifts €20b of Irish property debt in 14 months

Liquidator KPMG has sold almost all the loans of ‘bad bank’ Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), which have a total face value of €21.7 bn.

Lone Star, CarVal, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Oaktree Capital Management, Sankaty and Apollo are among the buyers.

The loans, almost all linked to real estate, have a face value of €21.7 bn and are split over five portfolios: Evergreen, Rock and Salt, Pebble, Stone, and Sand. KPMG has so far sold 88% of the loans, although the price actually achieved was not disclosed.

‘Since 2008, there has been a persistent view that there simply wasn’t the liquidity to pull off deals of this scale,’ said Andrew Jenke, partner at KPMG. ‘However, we have found in the last five months that there has been more than ample appetite amongst private equity and institutional investors for large loan portfolios.’

IBRC was formed in 2011 by the forced merger of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. Both were effectively state owned after Irish government bailouts. It was put into liquidation overnight by the Irish government in February 2013, with KPMG appointed as liquidator.

Click on the attachment below for an analysis of the Project Rock and Project Salt deal closed in February 2014.