Tag: Aktua

Lindorff & Aktua Integrate Their Management & Services Teams

25 January 2017 – El Economista

Lindorff España and Aktua have announced that they are going to unify their management and services teams, although both companies will continue to operate as independent legal entities and will retain their respective Boards of Directors, with the aim of consolidating the leadership position of both companies in their sector in Spain.

The current CEO of Lindorff España, Alejandro Zurbano, will be responsible for leading the organisation, together with the management and services of Aktua and Lindorff España, and so will become the CEO of the Lindorff Group’s entire business in Spain.

Meanwhile, Enrique Dancausa will be the group’s new Head of Real Estate Services at the global level. In this way, he will be responsible for developing the Lindorff Group’s strategy at the international level in the area of real state asset management.

The CEO of the Lindorff Group, Klaus-Anders Nysteen, has identified Spain as “an important growth market” for the company and has assured that, thanks to the union between Lindorff España and Aktua, the group will add the management of real estate assets to its global strategy, “a complete and new business area”, which will become “a fundamental part” of its business.

Following the acquisition of Aktua by Lindorff in June 2016, Banco Santander now holds 15% of the company’s shares; no changes in the ownership structure are forecast for the near future.

With the integration of both teams, Lindorff is seeking to: strengthen and consolidate its leadership position in Spain; give coverage to the full credit cycle; and offer comprehensive solutions for the recovery of debt and management of assets.

In terms of the merger between Lindorff and Intrum Justitia announced in November, the company has confirmed that it is planning to close that operation during the second quarter of 2017.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Banks Want To Regain Control Of Their RE Servicers

14 October 2016 – El Confidencial

Just three years after selling the management of their real estate companies to large international funds, Spain’s large banks are engaged in a widespread movement to try to regain control of those companies once again and as such, achieve absolute freedom to sell their properties by other means.

The reason? There are basically two motives. On the one hand, the banks consider that more profitable options exist to allow them to divest property without penalising their capital; and on the other hand, they want to save the management commissions that they are having to pay the funds for taking over the reins of these real estate companies, known in the jargon of the sector as “servicers”, and whose fees rise in line with the volume of assets managed.

Looking back…in December 2012, Banesto agreed the sale of Aktua to Centerbridge; in September 2013, Caixabank sold 51% of Servihabitat to TPG and Bankia sold 100% of its real estate company to Cerberus; two months later, Santander reached an agreement with Apollo to sell 85% of Altamira and Popular sold Värde and Kennedy Wilson 51% of Aliseda. Sabadell and BBVA, the other two large Spanish banks, chose to continue to manage their assets internally; the first through Solvia and the second through Anida.

Nevertheless, the majority of these marriages of convenience have been suffering from serious tensions for a while now; and these differences of opinion are causing the banks to begin to try to regain control of their real estate companies. According to El Confidencial, Popular is trying to reach an agreement with Värde to repurchase Aliseda and transfer its assets to the so-called “Proyect Sunrise”, a kind of bad bank through which it seeks to divest up to €6,000 million.

Santander has also been engaged in negotiations for severals months with Apollo, from which it already snatched a series of assets from the former real estate fund Banif to transfer them to Metrovacesa, the real estate company that has just finished merging its properties (not its land) with Merlin. In fact, that operation is an example of the type of project that the sector is now committed to, and which has caused all kinds of rumours to circulate about potential alliances.

For example, the entity chaired by Ana Patricia Botín and BBVA have found another way of getting rid of almost 7,000 homes (between the two of them) in the form of Testa, the rental housing subsidiary owned by Merlin. The two banks are deconsolidating all of the real estate assets that they are transferring to both Merlin and Testa, because they hold minority stakes, and this allows them to generate liquidity because the former is a listed company and the latter will be listed on the MAB from next year and on the main stock exchange within five years.

In the case of Servihabitat, Caixabank will be able to start to seriously consider a movement of this kind from next year, given that for the first four years (of the ten-year duration of their alliance), TPG has a special grace period, according to sources familiar with the agreement.

The case of Bankia is special, because the bulk of its assets were transferred to Sareb and it accounts for the real turnover of Haya Real Estate, the “servicer” created by Cerberus, given that the company was created with €12,200 million of the entity’s real estate assets and with €36,000 million from Sareb. Moreover, the fund acquired the companies Reser Subastas and Gesnova from Bankia.

Last year, Gesnova lost the entire portfolio of contracts that it held with the former real estate fund of Bankia, which was sold to Goldman Sachs, a blow that was compounded by Sareb’s decision to award Solvia the management of the portfolio of foreclosed assets that until then had been managed by Gesnova. In total, Haya saw a quarter of its revenues go up in smoke.

“All of the banks are looking at how to regain control of their servicers because they are realising that better alternatives exist, above all following the Metrovacesa operation, and in light of the fact that the real estate market is recovering”, said one source. “Everyone is talking to everyone else, lots of potential alternatives are being presented, which may or may not materialise, but the reality is that there is going to be a lot of movement in the world of the servicers over the next two years” said one executive from the sector.

Meanwhile, the funds are willing to withdraw from their investments provided the entities are willing to stump up the cash. In the case of Apollo, the figure is likely to exceed €1,000 million and in the case of Värde €800 million, according to sources. (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by R. Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Ibercaja Completes Sale Of Caja 3’s Industrial Portfolio

13 September 2016 – Expansión

Ibercaja is still putting the shine on its balance sheet ahead of its IPO, which is expected to take place at the end of next year or the beginning of 2018. Having transferred the administration and sale of 14,000 real estate assets to the platform Aktua in February, it is now on the verge of getting rid of all of its non-strategic holdings.

According to sources at the group, the bank has divested more than 200 business projects since 2012, which has allowed it to reduce its volume of portfolio investments by approximately €285 million. But the most important achievement is that it has now managed to finalise the investment plan inherited from Caja 3, as defined by Brussels, when that entity received public aid in 2012. 129 companies from the former savings banks were identified with an investment volume of €153 million, which means that Ibercaja is fulfilling all the requirements.

Nevertheless, it still needs to return that aid. Caja 3 received €386 million in contingent convertible bonds (CoCos) signed by the FROB, of which Ibercaja returned €20 million in March. The remaining balance has to be repaid between March and December 2017.

These divestments represent one of the pillars of Ibercaja’s strategic plan for 2015-17, together with the repayment of the aid; the issue of €500 million in subordinated debt from last year; the sale of problem debt to property developers; the transfer of its real estate assets to Aktua; and this year, its growth plan in Madrid; and its digitalisation plan, for which it has signed a strategic agreement with Microsoft.

In fact, within its specific divestment plan for 2015-2017, approximately 100 companies were identified as possible divestment targets, whereby reducing the volume of its investment portfolio by approximately €180 million. Currently, according to sources at the group, it has divested 53 companies, including total and partial sales. In total, it has decreased its investment in corporate projects by €68 million, with a positive contribution to the group’s consolidated result of €10 million. Its profits amount to €23 million since 2012. Meanwhile, sources at the group added that capital amounting to €27 million has also been freed up. In total, own funds have increased by €50 million.

The companies

In addition to the sale of Gestión de Inmuebles Salduvia, which was included in the agreement reached with Aktua in February this year, Ibercaja’s other major divestments include, by order of importance: the divestment of the Naturiber Group (specialising in the meat sector), Portobelio and Ahorro Corporación Infraestructuras (private equity funds), Ahorro Corporación Gestión (the fund manager), Titulización de Activos, Imaginarium (the toy retailer) and ATCA (a technology development company).

Over the next few years, Ibercaja plans to continue executing its divestment plan, which involves more than 50 additional sales, which will allow it to reduce its portfolio by approximately €112 million more, with the resulting positive impact on the income statement and an efficient allocation of capital.

Ibercaja reported profits of €72.3 million during the first six months of 2016, up by 3.7% compared to a year earlier, thanks to the sale of its real estate arm, as well as sales of debt.

Original story: Expansión (by D. Badía)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Sells €1,000M NPL Portfolio To Grove & Lindorff

9 May 2016 – Expansión

Banco Sabadell is accelerating the clean up of its balance sheet / Over the last three years, the bank has sold non-performing debt portfolios worth more than €5,300 million.

Banco Sabadell is establishing itself as one of the most active entities in the sale of large debt portfolios, as it continues to clean up its balance sheet. The bank chaired by Josep Oliu has just closed its first major operation of the year, known as Project Corus, involving the sale of €1,000 million in non-performing loans, which it has already fully provisioned. This is the largest portfolio that Sabadell has brought onto the market to date; none of its previous operations have exceeded €800 million.

The portfolio has been acquired by a consortium comprising Grove Capital Management and Lindorff, which have paid around 5% of the global amount of the loans acquired, in other words, around €50 million. This figure will be recorded as pure profit in Sabadell’s income statement.

The Corus portfolio comprises unsecured doubtful loans relating to consumer debt and credit cards. Grove has acquired €800 million of the portfolio, which it will now manage to try to recover the maximum amount possible. The fund is owned by Blenheim Chalcot and Encore Capital Group – one of the largest collection companies in the world – at the end of 2015, it bought another NPL portfolio, containing €400 million in doubtful debts, from Santander.

Background

Meanwhile, the Norwegian company Lindorff has purchased the remaining €200 million of the Corus portfolio. This fund has also just acquired 94% of the real estate company Aktua, which manages homes and debt on behalf of BMN, Ibercaja and Santander.

It is not the first time that Lindorff has acquired assets from Sabadell. In 2014, the company acquired the bank’s debt recovery division for €162 million, and incorporated the workforce into its own business.

Over the last three years, the bank led by Jaume Guardiola has transferred debt portfolios exceeding €5,300 million to clean up its balance sheet. (…).

By amount, Project Corus is the largest portfolio that Sabadell has put up for sale to date, but it will soon be overtaken by Normandy, a portfolio containing €1,700 million of doubtful real estate loans that the bank is currently evaluating.

Meanwhile, Sabadell has already put another operation on the market, known as Pirene and advised by KPMG, containing €460 million of problem assets linked to property developers.

Original story: Expansión (by Sergi Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lindorff Acquires 94% Of Aktua For €331M

3 May 2016  – Expansión

Santander retains a 6% stake / The fund Lindorff has acquired the real estate platform, along with its 400 employees and network of 20 offices from Centerbridge.

Lindorff is redoubling its commitment to Spain and, specifically, to the real estate sector. Yesterday, the fund reached an agreement with Centerbridge and the other shareholders to acquire 94% of Aktua, the platform that manages homes and debt from BMN, Ibercaja and some from Santander. According to reports by the Norwegian group, the operation is worth €313 million, including deferred and contingent payments. Santander will retain the remaining 6% stake.

Founded in 2008, the former real estate arm of Banesto, now has more than 400 employees and a network of more than 20 offices located all over the country. Following the purchase of Gestión de Inmuebles Salduvia, formerly owned by Ibercaja, the entity went onto manage more than 42,000 real estate assets, worth more than €8,000 million.

Centerbridge acquired the company from Santander’s subsidiary in 2012 for €100 million. The fund owned 83% of the capital, 6% belonged to Santander and the remainder, 11%, was shared between its own managers, including the CEO and former director of Banesto, Enrique Dancausa.

The company generated an operating profit of €38 million in 2015. “Spain is an important growth market for Lindorff”, said Klaus-Anders Nysteen, the CEO of Lindorff. “The operation provides us with a solid platform in the market for managing foreclosed assets, incorporating new capacities to achieve higher growth in the non-performing mortgage debt sector in Spain, and subsequently in other markets”, added Nysteen.

The purchase price and refinancing of Aktua’s debt will be financed by capital investment from Lindorff, as well as through the renewal of its credit lines, to reach €195 million.

Original story: Expansión (by J.Z. and D.B.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bankia, Sabadell & CaixaBank Have Sold €17,000M Of Problem Assets

27 April 2016 – Expansión

Spain’s banks still need to get rid of €350,000 million of problem assets from their balance sheets, despite having already divested €65,000 million over the last five years. The leaders in the disposal of non-core assets so far have been CaixaBank, Sabadell and Bankia, although experts indicate that divestment of toxic loans and foreclosed assets may taken another ten more years.

That was the view of the Heads of Advisory for Financial Divestments at KPMG, Deloitte, N+1 and PwC. “After ten years in this market, I think that we still have another ten years worth of divestments ahead. This market is here to stay”, said Joel Grau yesterday, Partner and Co-founder of N+1’s Corporate Portfolio Advisors, at an event organised by Europa Press and Servihabitat.

In recent times, the rate of asset sales has amounted to between €16,000 million and €22,000 million per year and experts at KPMG predict that this year will be the second best in the history of the sector in Spain: “We expect to see an increase of 7% in terms of portfolio sales with respect to 2015, to reach €19,500 million, with the weight of mortgage portfolios and foreclosed assets accounting for 49% of the total”, said Amparo Solía, the Partner responsible for Corporate in the Finance and Real Estate Sector at KPMG, the consultancy firm that participates in half of all operations.

Of that figure of almost €20,000 million, there are currently almost €15,000 million in the market, according to Jaime Bergaz, the Partner responsible for Deals – Financial Sector at PwC. Of that amount, around half relates to portfolios with a real estate component: debt to property developers, mortgages and foreclosed assets.

Once again this year, the entities that are proving to be most active in the divestment market are Sabadell, CaixaBank and Bankia. According to KPMG, those three financial groups have sold off problem assets amounting to €17,000 million in the last three years, which represents 30% of all of the assets sold by Spain’s banks.

Bankia is the leader in the ranking, with €9,000 million sold in the last three years, according to the different consultancy firms, followed by Sabadell, with €4,500 million and CaixaBank, with €4,000 million. (…).

Sareb, BMN, Santander and BBVA have almost sold portfolios worth more than €2,000 million in the last three years.

In addition, Sabadell currently has two portfolios up for sale worth €1,300 million and is studying the possibility of bringing a third onto the market worth €1,700 million. Meanwhile, CaixaBank has an operation underway involving a portfolio of doubtful debts to property developers, worth €800 million; and Bankia is considering launching the sale of a package of doubtful mortgages. Moreover, Cajamar is also proving very active; Abanca has a portfolio of NPLs up for sale; and Popular is expected to be involved in some major deals during the second half of the year.

Solía, from KPMG and Grau, from N+1, predict a higher volume of portfolio sales in 2017, due to the new provisioning circular and the banks’ need to increase their returns.

Ahead of this improvement, funds are already managing 80% of the banks’ problem assets, through platforms that they have been buying up in recent years. Investors paid €4,000 million for the servicers and have absorbed 3,200 jobs from the financial institutions.

The acquired platforms include Altamira, in which Apollo owns an 85% stake; Aliseda, in which Värde and Kennedy Wilson hold a 51% stake; Servihabitat, of which 51% is controlled by TPG; Haya Real Estate, which Cerberus acquired from Bankia; and Aktua, which Centerbridge bought from Banesto and is now selling to Lindorff. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by J. Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Deutsche Bank Lends €50M To RE Firm Aktua

18 April 2016 – Expansión

Deutsche Bank was involved in the largest direct lending transaction in Spain last year. Moreover, 2016 is only three and a half months old, but the same bank is already the lender in one of the largest operations of the year. And with the same borrower.

In 2015, the real estate services platform Aktua was the recipient of a €150 million injection, which Deutsche Bank granted to refinance its debt and allow it to pay a dividend to its owner, the fund Centerbridge. Within the next few days, the details will be finalised regarding the transfer of that platform to Lindorff.

Now, the German bank has increased its loan amount by €50 million. The aim is for Aktua to be able to finance the purchase of the management of Ibercaja’s real estate assets, which the company announced in February.

With these two operations, the financing that Deustche Bank has granted to Aktua, the former real estate subsidiary of Banesto, amounts to €200 million, which increases the volume of direct lending operations that the German bank has completed in Spain. “In the corporate segment alone, we have lent more than €500 million in two or three years”, explains Jesús Medina, Director of Structured Finance at Deutsche Bank.

That amount also includes the funds loaned to the chocolate company Natra at the end of 2015. The German financing entity entered into a syndicate of lenders after purchasing the firm’s debt from a Spanish bank in the secondary market, and as a first step, it participated in the restructuring that Natra needed to complete to survive. But the second step involved putting new money on the table to enable the chocolate company to do more than survive. And it did so in the form of a direct loan, together with another debt fund, amounting to around €20 million. “Our feeling is that there are operations in the market and that the structured financing segment is going to continue to grow, but we have to meet the needs of the moment and the windows of opportunity that arise”, added the executive.

Original story: Expansión (by I. Abril and D. Badía)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Experts Predict Mergers Between RE Servicers

30 March 2016 – El Mundo

The real estate servicers that emerged from the financial institutions are driving housing developments, taking advantage of the recovery in the sector in areas with demand, and also the growth in rents. Experts predict that we will see mergers between these entities over the next few years in order to reduce costs.

Servihabitat, owned 51% by the TPG and 49% by CaixaBank, currently manages €51,000 million of assets for financial institutions, Sareb, investment funds, holding companies and large landowners, and whereby leads the ranking of servicers in the Spanish sector. Of the total, €21,000 million relate to financial assets and €30,000 million relate to real estate assets. The company also has 59 developments under assessment and under construction, containing more than 2,500 homes, as well as 38,000 contracts for rental assets.

The Executive Director of Servihabitat’s real estate business, Juan Carlos Álvarez, has explained that the firm has completed 18 developments containing 707 homes over the last three years. Moreover, it finishes an average of 15,000 homes per year from developers who have left projects unfinished, given that most of the financial assets that it manages relate to developers who have filed for bankruptcy; it deals with just a handful of mortgages to individuals.

Whilst at the beginning of the crisis, it was common practice to pursue court proceedings and “daciones en pago” to manage financial real estate assets, now the strategy involves making the real estate assets supplied as collateral more attractive to sell them at the best price possible, says the Director of Financial Assets, Agustín Melchor.

Solvia, the real estate arm of Banco Sabadell, has also gained a lot of weight in the multi-client servicers field, although its two main clients are the bank led by Josep Oliu and Sareb. It manages more than €28,000 million of assets, of which more than €5,300 million are financial assets, and it also manages land under development worth €4,200 million, and more than 10,000 rental properties (worth more than €2,500 million).

In the development sphere, it has constructed more than 3,400 homes since 2011 and currently has 34,426 properties up for sale, including homes (13,634), parking spaces, storerooms, retail outlets, offices, warehouses, plots of land and others, such as moorings and buildings under construction. It has 23 new property developments underway – 21 that it is constructing on behalf of clients and two that it is marketing itself – which contain more than 1,100 homes, primarily in the areas of Barcelona and Madrid, Levante and Andalucía.

Rental properties as a business

Although Servihabitat and Solvia do not own any assets themselves (they manage them on behalf of their clients), Anticipa Real Estate (owned by the fund Blackstone and created with 40,000 mortgages from CatalunyaCaixa) specialises in buying up mortgages and properties to focus on the business of rental homes. Thus, its strategy involves long-term management, rather than the liquidation of assets, and in 2015, it acquired developer loan portfolios from CaixaBank and Sareb for around €1,000 million and 5,000 homes in total; it also agreed to buy 4,500 homes from Banco Sabadell – 3,000 of which are currently rented out.

Of the portfolio of mortgages under management, 25% pay normally, whilst the remaining 75% pay with varying degrees of default. Anticipa plans to apply “dación en pago” arrangements to the majority of its problem loans. To date, it has signed 3,000 agreements in total. Following the “dación en pago”, most borrowers leave the home, but 5% remain, with a reduced rental price under a three year contract, explained the CEO of Anticipa, Eduard Mendiluce.

The future of the sector

Experts predict that there will be mergers between the servicers over the next few years, as the banks de-couple themselves from these companies and new investors look for economies of scale to reduce their costs, according to the Esade Alumni Real Estate Club. One of the first examples has been the Norwegian company Lindorff, specialist in non-performing loans and recoveries, which has acquired Aktua, the real estate services company of the former Banesto: “We expect to see more operations”, say sources at the Club.

Moreover, the distancing of the banks is going to force these companies to look for new clients and choose between offering end-to-end real estate services to third parties and becoming real estate companies. Sources at the Club expect that the major banks will sell their servicers and that over the long-term, there will end up being four operators in Spain after the concentration process: Servihabitat and Solvia, as integrated service companies and Neinor Homes (the fond owned by Lone Star) and Anticipa as real estate companies, the first focusing on development and the second on rental properties.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lindorff Buys Aktua From Centerbridge For c. €300M

21 March 2016 – El Confidencial

Aktua, the real estate services company created by the former Banesto, which was acquired by the opportunistic fund Centerbridge Partners in 2012, is about to change owners once again. The Norwegian company Lindorff has reached an agreement to complete the acquisition for almost €300 million, which will turn it into one of the largest landlords in Spain. The Scandinavian company has fought off competition from Apollo Capital Management, the toxic property management arm of Banco Santander, as well as the German firm Activum SG Capital Management.

According to several sources, Lindorff has won the auction led by Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Linklaters against those two opponents, and is now putting the finishing touches to the legal conditions so that it can close the operation. It has not been simple because, whilst Aktua was on the market, its parent company, Centerbridge, acquired the real estate arm of Ibercaja – on 2 February – which meant that it had to recalculate the numbers for the potential buyers.

Aktua manages around 42,000 properties worth almost €7,000 million; those assets will be added to those that Lindorff already manages in Spain. The Scandinavian company was one of the pioneers to invest in the real estate and recovery services sector when the crisis first began. In fact, in 2012, it bought Reintegra for €100 million, the subsidiary of Banco Santander dedicated to the recovery of doubtful debts, and in December 2014, it acquired Sabadell’s recovery arm, for which it paid €160 million. Along the way, it also acquired several non-performing debt portfolios, including several from the bank led by Ana Botín.

Currently, Lindorff España, which last year appointed Alejandro Zurbano as its CEO, employs more than 1,100 professionals and has a presence throughout the country, with offices in Madrid, Valladolid, A Coruña, Alicante, Barcelona, Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, San Sebastián and Valencia. The multi-national company from the North of Europe has almost 4,000 employees in total, located in its 11 countries of operation, including Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Germany.

Although the amount of some of its operations have not been made public, Lindorff has invested almost €1,000 million to become one of the largest landlords in the country. Its work involves managing homes and retail premises, owned by the various real estate companies that it has acquired, claiming the payment of unpaid loans from their owners and negotiating the debt to obtain a spread. Once the last details of the purchase have been finalised, Linforff will manage non-performing loans, homes, retail spaces and land owned by Banesto, Ibercaja, Banco Mare Nostrum (BMN), Santander and Sabadell.

The sale of Aktua was essential for the main overseas funds that have become the largest landlords in Spain, because it is a volume-based business that is currently still very atomised. Sources in the market expect to see a process of concentration in the sector, in which almost €10,000 million has been invested, mainly on the purchase of non-performing loan portfolios. Some are already leaving, such as Elliott, which recently sold its recovery management platform to Cabot, and Fortress, which has now put its main businesses in Spain up for sale: the financing company Lico Leasing and the loan management platform Paratus.

For Centerbridge, the sale of Aktua is going to generate a sizeable profit, given that it acquired the platform for around €100 million in 2012 and is now selling it for almost €300 million. The real estate platform of the opportunistic fund employs 400 people and generates a gross operating profit or EBITDA of around €50 million.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Marco)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lindorff Finalises Purchase Of Aktua For €200M

2 March 2016 – Expansión

Project Pegasus / The Norwegian group is in exclusive negotiations to acquire the platform that manages homes and RE debt on behalf of BMN, Ibercaja and Santander.

Centerbridge and Lindorff are negotiating the details of one of the largest corporate transactions in Spain so far in 2016. The US fund has selected the Norwegian group as the main candidate to acquire the real estate platform Aktua, a former subsidiary of Banesto, whose asking price amounts to just over €200 million, according to several financial sources.

Aktua currently manages homes and real estate debt for Santander, BMN and Ibercaja. Aktua reached an agreement with the Aragonese group just over a month ago, which has somewhat delayed the sale of the management platform.

The sources consulted explained that the main terms of the agreement have now been established, but the fine print may take a few more days to finalise before signing.

In this way, Lindorff has beat off the other two finalists in the process, known as Project Pegasus: the US fund Apollo, the owner of Altamira; and the private equity firm Activum. The investment banks Bank of America and Barclays are acting as advisors to the operation.

The Norwegian group has been operating in Spain for eight years now, although to date, it has focused on the management of unsecured loans. Within this market, Lindorff acquired the collection subsidiaries of Santander, Banco Sabadell and BMN. The acquisition of Aktua will allow the firm to enter a new business segment with higher returns.

Aktua was founded in 2008 and currently employs 400 professionals working in 24 offices. Following the purchase of Gestión de Inmuebles Salduvia, from Ibercaja, it now manages more than 42,000 real estate assets, worth over €8,000 million. (…).

According to the latest available accounts, Aktua earned almost €5 million in 2014 and generated an EBITDA of €8.5 million. The forecasts from the advisors to the sale predict that the firm will generate EBITDA of between €40 million and €50 million in 2015.

According to data at the Commercial Registry, Centerbridge owns a 83% stake in Aktua’s capital, Santander owns 6% and the company’s managers own 11%. The latter group includes the CEO and former Director of Banesto, Enrique Dancausa. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by J. Zuloaga and D. Badía)

Translation: Carmel Drake