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NAMA needs to move away from its bureaucratic, public-sector mentality, embrace an entrepreneurial spirit, pay more to compete with the private sector and recruit another 200 staff.

These are just a few of the recommendations in the (surprisingly brief) report by ex-HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan in his review of the way that NAMA operates.

As we’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, NAMA has long been viewed as an attractive place to work among financial services professionals in Ireland; in part because it’s been hiring in relatively large numbers and also because the salaries on offer are fairly generous.

Geoghegan’s report offers a glimpse of what it’s like to work for NAMA, and it’s not a particularly appealing picture. Diplomatically put, he says that the organisation’s leaders had a ‘control’ focus, rather than an entrepreneurial background, which is “manifested in the large number of internal meetings, long agendas and substantial numbers of attendees”.

In other words, it’s getting bogged down in bureaucracy and needs a shake-up.

From an employment perspective, Geoghegan’s report is significant. The headline suggestion is the need to hire 200 more employees at a cost of €25m (or an average salary of €125k) to staff a newly-created Debt Restructuring unit. The role of this division would be to work on 600 more property investments currently managed by external parties that he wants to bring in-house.

Then there’s the changes to the current Portfolio Management team, some of whom would be moved into the Debt Restructuring division (along with credit and risk staff) while others would be shifted into a smaller arm called Portfolio Asset Management. The latter would be more specialised, and focused on improving as many property assets as possible.

He’s also proposing a new chief financial officer, a new head of strategic planning (who would be thinking about the shape of NAMA in three-five years’ time) and a new head of audit (who would try and streamline the existing function).

The report also suggests that there should be a new ‘career development’ unit is established in NAMA (NTMA’s HR team currently supplies support staff) to “manage future turnover and motivational issues”.

And here’s the thing that may grate with the Irish public; Geoghagan wants to pay NAMA staff more, ensuring than remuneration is “modelled on private sector, rather than public sector incentives”.

“There is a major risk that the best staff will leave for the private sector and this could materially impair NAMA’s abilities to secure the optimal return on its assets,” he wrote.

Let’s assume that “private sector” pay refers to the sort of packages you can expect in asset management. NAMA will have to pay decidedly more than the €102k average it’s currently shelling out.

According to a 2011 compensation survey by Greenwich Associates and Johnson Associates, equity portfolio managers earn an average of $850k (€635k), while those working in fixed income roles can expect $350-525k (€262-392k). Then, of course, there’s the chief executive’s remuneration – a the (largest) end of the scale, Larry Fink, chief executive of asset management firm BlackRock gets €20.7m a year.

There’d definitely be some people in NAMA welcoming the new organisational structure.