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Sareb Unlikely To Meet Its Property Sales Goal In 2015

14 July 2015 – Expansión

The President of Sareb acknowledged today that the bad bank will probably need the entire 15-year period originally granted to it, to sell all of its assets.

Speaking at a briefing organised by Europa Press and Servihabitat this morning, Jaime Echegoyen recognised that it will be hard for Sareb to meet the goal it had set for 2015 of selling 15,000 properties to individuals. During the first half of the year, the bad bank only sold 5,400 homes, i.e. 33% fewer than during the same period in 2014.

Sareb’s President insisted that the entity is selling its assets slowly (on purpose) to protect the capital of its investors. 51% of the bad bank’s capital is owned by private investors – all of the major banks except for BBVA, insurance companies and other entities – and the remaining 49% is held by the State.

Echegoyen has said that Sareb will probably need the entire 15-year period originally granted to the entity to sell all of its assets. “I would go as far as to say that we will end up needing all of the time originally granted to us. We are planning to use up the entire period, but if we manage to sell all of the assets sooner, then we will”, he said.

Carmena and Colau

The head of the bad bank also said that he wants to hear the proposals that the mayoresses of Madrid and Barcelona, Manuela Carmena and Ada Colau, respectively, are going to make. Echegoyen confirmed that he is meeting Carmena tomorrow and Colau next Friday and that his position ahead of those meetings is to be “flexible and listen carefully”.

Echegoyen also repeated the message he delivered to Congress’s Economic Committee last week, saying that Sareb has made 2,000 (social housing) homes available in several autonomous communities, and he reaffirmed that he hopes to sign more agreements in more regions soon.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake