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Spain’s Banks Continue to Suffer from High Levels of Exposure to Non-Performing Real Estate Assets

13 August 2019

Spain’s largest financial institutions still have more than 37 billion euros worth of non-performing real estate assets on their books, not counting non-performing loans, even after a series of major disinvestments over the past two years. The bank with the most significant exposure, Santander, sold €30 billion in assets to Blackstone; while BBVA sold another €13 billion to Cerberus. CaixaBank unloaded a €12.8 billion portfolio to Lone Star as Banc Sabadell sold assets totalling €10.1 billion to Cerberus and Oaktree.

EU banking regulators are pressuring the banks to quickly reduce their exposure even further, setting a high bar for the expected pace of disinvestment over the coming years.

Santander still has €10.132 billion in foreclosed assets, over 16% more than the bank with the second-highest exposure: Sabadell (€8.732 billion). Santander’s exposure to land is especially high, with a portfolio with a gross value of €4.37 billion. Thus, the bank recently created a company to prepare the portfolio for an eventual sale. The new company, Landmark Iberia, has 400,000 square meters of developable land for sale.

Original Story: El Confidencial – Jorge Zuloaga

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner