BMN’s €200 Mn ‘Neptune’ Developer Loan Package Up For Sale

20/11/2014 – Expansion

BMN wishes to reduce its real estate exposure as soon as possible. The entity chaired by Carlos Egea has put on the market a developer loan portfolio valued at €200 million. The sale would allow it to squeeze the total volume lent to this type of client by one third.

According to the latest data available (June 2014), BMN intended a €614 million worth for refinancing construction and developer loans. Of the amount, €355 million corresponded to doubtful, €16 million to substandard, and €106 million to completely non-performing credits.

In 2013, BMN transferred €4.71 billion of toxic assets to Sareb, excluding loans equal or smaller than €250.000.

The new operation, named Project Neptune, includes those exact credits not conveyed to the bad bank. Of the €200 million portfolio, 95% is made up of real-estate-backed loans. In total, 470 loans with 1.100 assets as collaterals worth €172.000 each on average.

Andalusia and Murcia

Among the properties one may find flats, offices, retail and land, say financial sources with knowledge of the sale. Most of them are located in Andalusia and Murcia, homes to the two of the savings banks that founded BMN: Caja Murcia and Caja Granada.

The Project Neptune comes behind such large and quite recent two huge loan portfolio sales by CaixaBank and Sabadell.

Similarly to what these entities did, BMN gave priority to shedding developer debt as the chances to recover the principal are low and the provisions scope assures no more losses will be borne in case of a sale.

In parallel to that path, Spanish banks opt for speeding up respossessions and subsequent home sales through their trading networks. This way, last week BMN launched a campaign and said to be seeking buyers aged 30-40 for its 1.300 properties. The entity tries to catch eyes of potential mortgagors with a €350 monthly payment.

The Agreement with Centerbridge

The market expects that Aktua, the real estate affiliate of BMN sold by the bank to fund Centerbridge, will be one of bidders for Neptune. Back in March, the bank handed its servicer Inmare to the fund for €50 million.

BMN earned €101 million from January to September, by 15 times more than in the same period of 2013.

 

Original article: Expansión (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: AURA REE