THE National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) is to expand its workforce by about a fifth by the end of the year as Nama continues to ramp up its activity.

The agency, whose employees earn more than any other public servants, will see its staff numbers rise to about 300 by the end of the year from 250. Most of the new recruits will end up working for Nama. Details of the planned expansion were disclosed in a document sent to prospective bidders for a contract to carry out a review of the NTMA's functions.

According to the document, Nama currently has 70 employees. The NTMA's banking unit, which is responsible for managing the state's shareholdings in the main banks, has five employees, and eight people work on managing and funding the national debt.

Separately, valuation experts have raised concerns that the second tranche of loans going to Nama attracted a higher discount than the first tranche and a lower long-term economic value, despite there being significantly more UK properties in the tranche as a percentage of its overall value. The results are being analysed in detail, but Nama believes the main reason is the respective quality of the Irish property assets in two tranches. That has raised concerns that the haircuts will get worse as the process continues, raising the cost to the state of refinancing the banks.

The average discount rose from 50% to 55.6% on the back of increased haircuts at Anglo0, as revealed by the Sunday Tribune last month, while the long-term economic value percentage dropped from 11% to 9.8%.