Pearse Doherty
Question:227. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance if he will provide an update on the liquidation process at Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. [48247/14]
View answerTuesday, 16 December 2014
Questions (227)
Written answers
The Special Liquidators continue to implement the orderly and efficient winddown of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited (in Special Liquidation) ( IBRC ) in accordance with the provisions of the IBRC Act and the instructions issued by the Minister for Finance under the IBRC Act 2013.
As the Deputy is aware, for operational reasons, the loan assets of IBRC were divided into six portfolios: Evergreen, Sand, Rock, Salt, Stone and Pebble. In total, there were 15,734 Borrower Groups comprising 24,632 loans for sale across the 6 portfolios.
In April 2014, the Special Liquidators announced that the initial loan sales process had concluded. The sales process of the IBRC loan assets delivered a very positive result with over 90% of the loan assets (with a par value of €21.7bn) being sold.
Following instructions from the Minister for Finance, NAMA are no longer obliged to purchase the unsold IBRC assets at their independent valuation as previously envisaged, as the expected proceeds to be raised from the sale of the IBRC loan assets will be sufficient to fully repay the IBRC debt to NAMA (this debt has since been fully repaid). Therefore, the Special Liquidators devised a further sales process in respect of the unsold loan assets to maximise the return to all remaining creditors of IBRC, including the State.
The Special Liquidators have corresponded with all those remaining Borrowers of IBRC whose loan assets were not sold in the first sales process providing them with an opportunity to make written representations on the method of disposal of their loans and the criteria for determining who may bid for loan assets. Consideration was given to these Borrower representations and the Special Liquidators responded to these Borrower representations.
This sales process is currently underway and the Special Liquidators are unable to quantify at this stage the total sales proceeds that will be achieved from this process. The Special Liquidators expect the sales of the remaining loan assets to be completed before 31 December 2014.
In tandem with the further sales process, the Special Liquidators have published advertisements and written to those known creditors in order to finalise their claims in the liquidation. Creditors in the UK and Ireland have until 31 March 2015 to submit their claims and those creditors in the US have until 31 May 2015.
Once all claims have been submitted, they will be reviewed in detail and adjudicated on by the Special Liquidators. In order to finalise this process, further information may be sought from some creditors in order to validate their claim.
It will be some time before the Special Liquidators will be in a position to advise on the likely dividends to be payable to creditors given:
1. The early stage in the creditor adjudication process;
2. The other contingent liabilities that may crystallise from litigation; and
3. The future receipts from the sale of the remaining assets.