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AURA REE Advises on Bankia’s NPL Amazona Project Sold to Sankaty & Starwood

24/10/2014 – Expansion, Europapress

Bankia keeps on shedding core assets and curing its balance. Yesterday, the group closed the sale of the NPL portfolio of par value of €772 million backed with property and hotels. Of the total, an €766 million amount corresponds to doubtful loans. It is said that BFA-Bankia could have received between €300 and 400 million for the package.

The buyers of the portfolio called ‘Amazona‘ were U.S. fund Starwood, successful player in the hotel business, and Sankaty Advisors, specialized in corporate debt services.

The NPL volume has been split into two parts. First is made up of secured syndicate and bilateral loans to Spanish SMEs amounting to €421 million, while the other includes hotel-backed credits worth €351 million. The two sub-portfolios jointly encompass 279 contracts.

‘Ever since the price reached its cap, the sale became an extremely competitive process among leading insitutional investors and financial entities’, Bankia said in a statement.

Thanks to the transaction, the bank may reduce its toxic asset volume by €320 million and free funds for new loans. Currently, delinquency rate of Bankia posts 14% with a 59% coverage.

This is the second NPL portfolio transferred by Bankia this October as the entity sold a part of its developer loans to Chenavari, an opportunistic fund that paid around €79 million for the portfolio called ‘Sky Project‘. Moreover, it included 419 REO assets.

‘We are delighted to invest in this Spanish portfolio and extend our path of investing in companies, operative businesses and real estate assets in Europe’, said the head of Sankaty’s division on the Old Continent, Alon Avner.

On the part of Starwood Capital Group, vice-president Peter Denton assured that the team is ‘enthusiastic about acquisition of a portfolio with hotels as underlying collaterals’.

AURA REE, Hatfield Philips International, CBRE, Hellenic Lloyd’s, KPMG and PwC provided their professional services on matters regarding finance and property valuation. Copernicus led the partners through the due dilligence stage and J&A Garrigues through the legal matters.

 

Original article: Expansión, Europapress

Translation: AURA REE