npl-reo Market News: Spanish Real Estate Intelligence

17 June 2019 - El Confidencial

Sareb is on a mission to change its course. According to market sources, the bad bank chaired by Jaime Echegoyen (pictured below) has decided to put its contracts with Altamira (owned by doBank), Servihabitat (Lone Star) and Solvia (Intrum) out to tender two years before their scheduled renewal.

Even though the contracts are not due to expire until the end of 2021, Sareb is putting them out to tender alongside that of Haya Real Estate, which is due to expire at the end of 2019. This represents a boost for Cerberus’s servicer, given that its competitors will now also have to focus on retaining their own contracts rather than just bidding for Haya’s.

In the event that Sareb awards the contracts of Altamira, Servihabitat and Solvia to other entities, it will have to compensate the servicers since their contracts clearly establish early termination clauses.

Altogether, Sareb is looking at putting out to tender the management of €34 billion in loans and properties that it still has left in its portfolio. The four will have to submit their bids in the next few months, specifying which assets they want to manage and what commissions they will charge.

The largest mandate is that of Haya, which manages assets proceeding from Bankia, which accounted for 37% of the bad bank’s original assets. It is followed by Altamira, which manages the assets proceeding from Catalunya Banc, BMN and Caja 3 (29% of the total); Servihabitat, which manages the assets from NCG Banco, Liberbank and Banco de Valencia (19%); and Solvia,  which manages assets from Bankia (foreclosed), Banco Gallego and Ceiss (15%). Clearly, there is a lot at stake for these servicers.

Original story: El Confidencial (by J. Zuloaga & R. Ugalde)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

13 June 2019 - El Confidencial

Blackstone has engaged Bank of America to liquidate almost all of the remaining Catalunya Banc subprime mortgages that it purchased from the State between 2014 and 2015 as part of Project Hércules.

After almost five years of actively managing the portfolio, the US fund now has just 31,000 of the more than 100,000 subprime mortgages that it purchased, which are worth €1 billion compared with €5.7 billion in 2015.

Project Castillo is going to contain almost 11,000 of those mortgages, all of which are up to date in terms of payments, but which have been refinanced at some point over the last 5 years.

This sale forms part of a series being undertaken by Blackstone as it completes its first cycle of investments in Spain. In this context, the US fund’s rental home Socimi Fidere put most of its assets up for sale recently.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake