NAMA and the Master SPV

NAMA is rather complicated. And so is its ownership structure. One would think NAMA would publish their company documents on their website – but they don’t. It is afterall an interminably opaque organisation.

To remedy at least a part of this, I am publishing the company accounts of all NAMA related companies – firstly and most importantly, those of National Asset Management Agency Investment Limited. This is the company that operates the Master special purpose vehicle (SPV), which is 51% owned by private interests, and 49% owned by the State. The reason for the split is so that NAMA’s debt can stay off the balance sheet of the State.


Interesting, isn’t it?

National Asset Management Agency Investment Limited has 100,000,000 shares. 49,000,000 of those are held by the National Asset Management Agency. Another 17,000,000 are held each by Irishlife Assurance PLC (part of the Permanent TSB group), New Ireland Assurance Company (part of the Bank of Ireland group) and Percy Nominees (Part of the AIB group)

Percy Nominees is an interesting one. Why a nominee company? Who are the private investors (if any), aside from AIB pension funds, that are invested in NAMA? The nominee company itself has a colourful history.

In 2007, Percy took action against Treasury Holdings over the title of the Northside Shopping Centre in Coolock. The Independent:

The freehold of the centre was held in trust by Percy Nominees Ltd for both it and Mr Conlan, subject to a 99-year lease from October 1976 held by N1 Property Developments Ltd.

BNY claims that it, Ark Life and Mr Conlan entered in November 1998 into a co-ownership agreement with AIB Investment Managers Ltd (AIBIM), which included provisions governing the sale by one party of its interest in the centre.

Let’s follow this for a second. Peter Conlan appears to be a property developer, who may also be the same Peter Conlan who is a director of Tanat Limited and Pensar Limited. Tanat is itself a company also connected with Treasury Holdings. Let’s see how:


An interesting list there of over 300 companies of which Treasury Holdings chief Johnny Ronan (DOB December 4, 1953) is a director. Peter Conlan says in the document that he is a director of Boulden, a company dissolved in 1998, and Leisureworld Limited. According to the Tanat accounts, the company values its fixed assets at €14,000,000 as of December 2008. The company appears to own one property, and owes one bank €7.4m. The company is 50% owned by Mr Ronan and Mr Conlan.

Mr Conlan may or may not be still involved with Percy Nominees, but interesting documents nonetheless.

And what about Percy itself? Percy appears to own, on behalf of its clients, several properties in the UK. There is also a similarly named company called Percy Investment Funds PLC from which Percy Nominees director Niall Markey (an AIB employee) resigned in 2005. Percy Investment funds was categorised by British authorities as an offshore fund and it requested to have its authorisation revoked as a Collective Investment Scheme in the same year. Another director is Head of Property in the asset management area of AIBIM Caroline O’Shea, according to the AIB website. Here is more details on Percy Nominees:


4 thoughts on “NAMA and the Master SPV”

  1. So, the tax payers will get less than half the money spent back (best case scenario), and the banks and developers that caused the disaster, will get paid yet again for their bad debts that the tax payers bought off them.

    This brings the term “scam” to a whole new level and meaning..

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