BBVA & Sabadell Doubt in SanJose’s Recovery & Sell Debt With Loss

22/10/2014 – El Confidencial

Lenders abandon real estate firm SanJose one by one. As recently as this summer Santander and Barclays sold their debt shares in the syndicate at deep discounts. Now the time has come for BBVA and Sabadell as the entities put up for sale €135 million in loans in total. The buyer, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, bought the portfolio at 55%-off, having beyond distressed fund Värde Partners in the deal.

The sales prove rapidly shrinking confidence in rescuing SanJose and one may even state that the banks are afraid the firm will end up in bankrupcy and they will say good-bye to recovering their equity.

BBVA transferred €59.4 million in loans and it still maintains €25 million in current financing, as well as €47.9 million in bilateral credit. In turn, Sabadell sold a €74 million share with remaining €12.3 million in the current and €5.7 million in the bilateral.

Also, Caja Vital shed its part of the debt amounting to €3.4 million. In August, Santander disposed of €190 million and Barclays of €135 million in loans.

The refinancing agreed upon few months ago assumes a swap of €280 million in liabilities for a 70% stake in the real estate branch of the group, with no view to forgiveness.

SanJose’s indebtness totals at €1.96 billion. Huge part of it (€1.34 billion) has been borrowed for acquisition of another property manager, Parquesol, in 2007. The rest splits between the current financing (€325 million) and bilateral loans (€296.7 million).

Popular appears as the principal lender with €476 million lent, followed by Värde Partners (€450 million), his partner at real estate servicer and credit card business.

Next there ranks Abanca (before NCG Banco) with €328 million overdue, Sareb (€166 million) and Caixa Geral (€144 million). Also, Eurohypo, Bankia, CaixaBank, Unicaja, Caja Rural de Navarra and Millenium appear on the list of creditors. After the sales, Santander is left out with €86.1 million, BBVA with €73 mln, Sabadell with €18 mln and Barclays with only €1 mln.

Loss & Slump on the Stock Exchange

In the first half of the year, SanJose, earned mere €55.2 million and suffered further losses of €34.07 million. It means by 14.8% less than in H1 2013 and the sixth consecutive year in the red.

The results reflect an abrupt fall in income from construction, although it still creeps in positive, and a reduction in losses from the real estate division (-39,5%) to €38 million.

Refinancing agremeent drove the shares of SanJose up to the sky on the stock exchange, whose prices rose from €0.78 each in September to €1.11 registered on 19th that month. However, the values dipped down again to the previous level until marking €0.85 a share yesterday.

Year-to-date, the depreciation shows 29.17%, rounded to 38.5% in the last 12 months.

 

Original article: El Confidencial (by Eduardo Segovia)

Translation: AURA REE