NAMA has formally announced the sale of its €1.8bn “Project Tower” loan portfolio to Blackstone.

The transaction, which had been well flagged, is expected to be completed this week.

The “Tower portfolio” is made up of loans, property and development linked to Cork developer Michael O’Flynn’s O’Flynn Group, and has a face value of €1.8 bn.

Michael O’Flynn, managing director of the O’Flynn group, welcomed the sale.

“As a strong …

I remember interviewing the late Brian Lenihan at the Department of Finance in early November 2010. After the interview we chatted and he asked how I thought the markets had received news that some holders of subordinate bonds in Irish Nationwide were going to sue the State because the bank was about to impose haircuts on them.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich was one of them. “Imagine the size of the …

TAX officials are trawling through hundreds of thousands of credit card bills to find tax cheats.

The Revenue Commissioners have obtained details of 206,000 foreign credit cards and debit cards held by Irish residents, and tax officials are now poring through one million transactions to catch cheats secretly bringing undeclared income into the country.

The taxman wants to uncover people moving undeclared income back into Ireland from tax havens such …

Construction continued to grow in April as business confidence in the sector is at its strongest since June 2000, according to the Ulster Bank Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index.

The monthly construction purchasing managers’ index (PMI) from Ulster posted an overall score of 63.5 points for April, up from a reading of 60.2 points in March. A level above 50 points indicates expansion.

“The results of the April survey of the …

Dealing with non-performing loans and providing credit to SMEs and the construction sector is crucial to ensuring Ireland’s economic recovery can be sustained, the European Commission has warned. It also fears that a failure to kick-start credit flows could hamper the supply of new homes.