Audit firm PWC has seen off competition from three other firms to retain its role as the internal auditors to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama).

This follows a notice published confirming that the company has retained the internal audit role for Nama’s remaining life and any run-off period.

The tender documentation states that “it is expected that Nama will continue to work out its remaining portfolio where ultimate wind-up of Nama operations is expected in 2025”.

When advertising the tender earlier this year, Nama put an indicative contract value of €1.8 million on the contract.

However, the contract notice published shows that the highest tender received was €1.1m and the lowest tender was €821,750.

A spokesman for Nama stated yesterday: “Under EU procurement rules, the procuring entity is required to award tenders of this nature to the most economically advantageous tender.”

As part of the contract, PWC will work closely with Nama’s external auditors. Nama’s  external audit fees for 2019, the most recent year available, totalled €832,000.

The Comptroller and Auditor General received €450,000 in fees and Mazars’ agreed statutory audit fee for 2019 amounted to €315,000.

The Nama spokesman said that the fees paid for audit work for 2020 “will be disclosed in the 2020 annual report, which will be published in the next few weeks”.

The tender states the internal auditor is to provide internal audit services under the direction of the NAMA Audit Committee.

The work was to commence on May 1 which will involve completing and reporting on the internal audits that were planned and approved for 2021 by the Nama Audit Committee.

The tender states that Nama’s balance sheet is very much simplified after the final redemption of the subordinated debt and the exit of the private investors in 2020.

It states that at the end of 2020 Nama had a debtor loan portfolio measured at fair value of around €900m with around 180 debtor connections.

On the scale of the work involved, the tender states that the work from May 1 to the end of December this year “will take a minimum of 400 man days to complete over this eight month period.”