Tom Healy: A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is a technical term that refers to a wide variety of arrangements where a financial entity is established for a ‘special purpose’ as the title suggests. The National Asset Management Agency is a type of SPV set up to buy distressed assets from bust banks and seek to work off these loans over time and recoup some of the loss for the state. In this case, the vehicle established is said to be ‘off the books’ (of the state.
