Agreement between Cassa Centrale and Arrow Global for the sale of NPLs for 345 million euro

14 October, City Wire

Cassa Centrale signed the agreement to sell an NPL portfolio for 345 million euro to Arrow Global. The portfolio includes secured and unsecured loans from privates as well as SMEs.

Source: City Wire

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi

Cooperative credit banks: more time for ECB test. Maxi NPL transfers coming up

05 April, Il Sole 24 Ore

The future cooperative credit groups, Iccrea e Cassa Centrale Banca, are currently working on the operational plan to operate as groups that might be launched at the beginning of next year. There is also an encouraging element. In fact, the comprehensive assessment by the ECB might be postponed. The asset quality review and the stress test were originally scheduled for autumn 2018, but they might be postponed to the first quarter of 2019, when the two groups will have obtained the authorization from the Surveillance Authority. That makes a lot of difference. In the meanwhile, the banks are working on cleaning up their financial statements. Since the ECB tests are based on the performance referred to the previous year, the results will be definitely better if the tests are carried on the 2018 figures. Furthermore, the groups will have to opportunity to avail themselves of the early warning power as regulated by the contract, hence they’ll be able to check on those banks that are not compliant with the regulation.

In the meanwhile, the groups have started an internal comprehensive assessment at the beginning of the year as suggested by the ECB in order to assess their financial strength and the sustainability of the business plan before submitting on 2nd May the official request to the surveillance authority to operate as group. The professionals from Banca d’Italia and the ECB are already working with the two banks to check the smooth execution of the process. The crucial part is the stock of bad loans and the measures adopted for their disposal. Iccrea has gross debts of approximately 20 billion, 9.7 billion net. Of this, 4.3 are net bad loans, as recently stated by the management of the group. Iccrea has been studying lately an NPL transfer operation: the first tranche of 800 million will be transferred in June with a securitisation using state guarantee (Gacs). The business plan includes also another tranche for the value of 3.5-4 billion over the next two years. It’s likely that once the request to operate as group will be submitted, the authorization will be released shortly after. Hence, it’s possible that the extraordinary meeting of members will gather already in October to decide on the cooperative credit banks adhering to the group.

Whereas Cassa Centrale Banca has recently gathered in Bari around one hundred cooperative credit banks involved in the same process as Iccrea, and it’s currently working to submit the official request to the ECB on 4th May. The group has a gross NPL ratio (the ratio between bad loans and total assets) of 16.5%. The objective is to reduce the ratio to 8% by the end of the business plan on 2021. An ambitious goal that is supported by a good equity level with a Cet1 set at 18.4% at the end of 2017. There is the plan for a transfer bad loans for 2.1 billion in three tranches. One billion will be put on the market by the end of the year with an ad hoc operation which is currently on, involving 48 cooperative credit banks that have selected the portfolios to transfer (taking advantage in this way of the first time adoption as regulated by the new Ifrs9 accounting principles). The second tranche will amount to 740 million and it will be carried out through securitisation, the operation will be launched at the beginning of the next year. Finally, in 2020 NPLs for 300/400 million euro from 30 cooperative credit banks will be transferred. The governance of the future bank has been already drafted: 15 members at the Board of Directors, 7 of which will be independent and external councillors (Ceo included), and 8 members representing the affiliated banks.

Source: Il Sole 24 Ore

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi

Double NPL transfer for 885 million euro in total coordinated by Cassa Centrale Banca

13 January, Bebeez

A team of cooperative and rural banks has transferred two NPL portfolios for a total value of 885 million euro gross in two separate operations coordinated by Centrale Credit & Real Estate Solutions (Gruppo Cassa Centrale Banca) in the role of advisor and by Banca Imi in the role of financial advisor and arranger.

The first portfolio, for 570 million euro, is named “Progetto Buonconsiglio “, and it has concerned loans belonging to 11 cooperative and rural banks. The portfolio has been transferred through a multi-originator and multi-tranche securitisation operation, the first of its category. The senior notes will be subscribed by the American fund Seer Capital Management. The portfolio will be managed by the servicer Locam, reporting to Seer Capital. The platform will be used in the future to implement other operations of this type.

The second portfolio, for 315 million, is composed of NPLs originated from 21 banks (cooperative credit banks and cooperative banks). In this case, the credits have been acquired directly by Locam, that will manage them. The operation has been implemented through a consolidated multi-originator structure for the transfer of bad loans. Starting from 31 December, in fact, CCRES has been coordinating NPL transfers mainly from cooperative credit banks for a total nominal value of approximately 2 billion on behalf of over 100 Italian banks.

For both initiatives, the transferred portfolios were composed of granular loans of various nature such as mortgages, current accounts and other types, both of private and enterprise customers. Concerning the project Buonconsiglio, the securitisation concerned mostly loans backed by mortgages. Thanks to the multi-originator structure, each transferring bank has been able to dispose of their portfolios, even of small dimensions, benefiting from the aggregation with the portfolios originated from other banks. This has made possible arranging operations of considerable proportions, able to attract the interest of the main investors at European level and to generate liquidity.

Source: Bebeez

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi

Cassa Centrale to transfer NPLs for 500 million by the end of the year

 

Cassa Centrale Banca is planning to complete by the end of the year the transfer of the 500 million NPL portfolio.

It was announced by the General Director Mario Sartori which is intending to sign the closing in the next months.

“We’re currently in the process to receive the offers – he stated – and we have received 5-7 of them from national and international players so far. We’ve been working on NPL transfers for years, both direct and through securitisation. This is our seventh operation, for a total credit limit of about 2 billion”.

 

Source: http://www.monitorisparmio.it/cassa-centrale-entro-fine-anno-cessione-npl-per-500-mln_20179211446

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi

Cassa Centrale Banca is preparing the securitisation of secured Npls for 560 million

 

Cassa Centrale Banca wants to securitise within the year non performing loans for a nominal value of 560 million euro. It was written today in MF Milano Finanza, pointing out that yesterday the bank from Trentino, headed by Giorgio Fracalossi and managed by the general director Mario Sartori, received the nonbonding offers and that it’s supported in the operation by Banca Imi as an advisor. The closing is expected by the end of the year.

This would be the sixth multi-originator securitisation operation coordinated by the bank. The portfolio on sale is composed of mortgages for 85%, unlike the Npls portfolios previously transferred by the bank, as that one for 338 million coming from 36 cooperative credit banks coordinate by Cassa Centrale Banca, transferred last December to Locam. Also, in that case, the operation was completed with the support of Banca Imi.

In that occasion, Fabrizio Berti, Credit Director for Cassa Centrale Banca, commented to MF Milano Finanza: “Since the beginning of the program in 2013, we have been organizing transfers for about 1.2 billion euro, involving 90 different banks”, adding that “some banks have transferred Npls several times. If we consider the number of banks taking part without counting the duplicates, they have been 130”.

Moreover, Berti revealed that there were already two other operations at the horizon.”In July 2017 we will bring to the market a securitisation of Npls for 600-650 million euro, for which he have already found the portfolios coming from about twenty cooperative credit banks. In this case, there will be a significant percentage of secured credits and this will allow us to re-sell the senior tranches ( estimated around 75%-80% of the securitisation value) to the originator banks, while the equity tranche will be placed to specialized investors. The structure, however, hasn’t been defined with certainty. It’s also possible that the senior tranche will be 70% and that a mezzanine for 10% and a junior always for 20% will be considered. In any case, we envisage to use the Gacs for the senior notes, since they will be re-purchased by who originated the credits”.

At the same time, always in the summer of 2017, Berti also said, Cassa Centrale Banca will organize a sixth transfer of bad loans in its program as well, to the benefit of the cooperative credit banks with smaller portfolios to sell, as the minimum dimension of the portfolio to transfer has been set around 40 million euro. “It  will be an operation of approximately 100-120 million euro and we’re expecting it next summer too”, concluded Berti.

Cassa Centrale closed 2016 with a profit of 18.4 million euro against the 14.8 of 2015 and a Cet1 ratio of 24.7% against the 20.7% of 2015. The global added value raised to 80.8 million from 71.5 of 2015.