NTMA extends Apple deadline

Photo: Reuters

Gretchen Friemann

THE National Treasury Management Agency has extended the deadline on a tender process aimed at securing an escrow agent for Apple's disputed, multi-billion euro tax fund and amended a key condition that would have limited the number of eligible candidates. The deadline is now September 29.

Under the original guidelines, the NTMA limited the field to those firms with €500bn of assets under management and stipulated this must be held within a single legal entity. Few investment managers are of that scale, however, and the NTMA recently altered the terms of entry to enable applicants to combine funds held in separate entities.

Apple is expected to funnel up to €15bn into the fund with the cash held in escrow as it, along with the Government, appeals the EU Commission's ruling that Apple received €13bn in illegal State aid.