CaixaBank Will Save €550M Over the Next 3 Years from the Sale of its Real Estate

27 July 2018 – La Vanguardia

CaixaBank estimates that the sale of 80% of its real estate business to the US fund Lone Star will result in a cost saving worth €550 million over the next three years, from 2019 to 2021.

On 28 June 2018, CaixaBank announced that it had reached an agreement with Lone Star to sell it a portfolio of foreclosed assets comprising real estate assets available for sale as at 31 October 2017 and the real estate company Servihabitat, worth around €7 billion in total.

The CEO of CaixaBank, Gonzalo Gortázar (pictured above), highlighted today that the operation, which is expected to be closed at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, will allow the entity to clean up its balance sheet of the foreclosed assets accumulated during the years of the crisis and to improve profitability.

“We have managed to reduce the volume of harmful assets sooner than we had expected, before the new strategic plan comes into effect” for the period 2019-2021 that CaixaBank plans to present in November, according to Gortázar.

The director added that the operation with Lone Star will not generate “a significant result” for CaixaBank, although it will allow it to increase its future profitability, thanks to cost savings of around €550 million over the next three years, given that having real estate assets on its balance sheet has an associated operating cost.

The completion of this sale will result in the deconsolidation of CaixaBank’s real estate business, which will make it “the bank with one of the most healthy balance sheets in the Spanish market”, he said.

Original story: La Vanguardia

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Apple: Apollo Bids Hard for Santander’s Last Real Estate Portfolio

30 July 2018 – El Confidencial

Project Apple, the name chosen for the €5 billion real estate portfolio that Banco Santander has put up for sale, is entering the home stretch. The entity chaired by Ana Botín has asked the interested funds to submit their definitive offers this week, according to sources close to the operation.

As this newspaper revealed, the firms that have expressed their interest in the operation include the giants Lone Star, Cerberus, Blackstone and Apollo, although, the latter two are regarded as the favourites, given that they have significant recent history with the Cantabrian bank’s property.

Just one year ago, Blackstone was awarded project Quasar, the €30 billion portfolio of gross toxic assets that Santander sold (following its acquisition of Banco Popular). Meanwhile, Apollo owns 85% of Altamira, the real estate asset manager that the financial entity created and which is currently administering the €5 billion portfolio up for sale.

Having been left out of all of the major real estate processes involving the banks, Apollo has decided to bid hard for Apple, according to the same sources, a move that has been launched in parallel to the possible sale of  (its stake in) Altamira, the manager that would lose some of its appeal if another fund were to manage to acquire this portfolio.

In addition, the firm led in Spain by Andrés Rubio has just reached an agreement with Santander to modify Altamira’s management contract and to refinance the servicer’s debt, in a deal that has allowed the fund to distribute a dividend of €200 million.

For Santander, the sale of Project Apple will mean completing the divestment of all of its real estate exposure, a move that took a giant leap forward last year with the transfer of the Quasar portfolio to Blackstone.

Nevertheless, and precisely because it has already cleaned up the bulk of its balance sheet, the entity does not have any need to sell and, therefore, if the bids come in below its expectations, it may decide not to transfer the portfolio after all, at least not through this process.

After the Cantabrian bank, BBVA reached an agreement with Cerberus to sell it 80% of its toxic property, whose gross value amounts to €13 billion, in an operation that is expected to be completed later this year.

More recently, CaixaBank reached an agreement with Lone Star to sell it 100% of Servihabitat and the majority of a portfolio of properties worth €6.7 billion; and Banco Sabadell made a deal to transfer €12.3 billion in toxic assets to Cerberus (€9.1 billion), Deutsche Bank (€2.3 billion) and Axactor (€900 million).

Original story: El Confidencial (by R. Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Sacrifices Profits to Clean Up its Balance Sheet & Resolve the TSB Crisis

27 July 2018 – Expansión

Banco Sabadell has decided to sacrifice all of the profit that it obtained in the last quarter to clean up its balance sheet and leave behind the impact of the sale of its real estate portfolios and the complex IT integration of TSB.

The entity chaired by Josep Oliu earned €120.6 million during the first half of the year, a figure that represents a decrease of 67.2% with respect to the same period last year (€317.7 million) as a result of having recognised impairments amounting to €806 million. Nevertheless, if we ignore those extraordinary effects, the bank’s recurring net profit grew by 24.4% to €456.8 million.

The entity decided to take a hit on the income statement for the second quarter with a provision amounting to €177 million resulting from the macro sale operation of a real estate portfolio worth €12.2 billion and which was formalised in July, in other words, in the third quarter. In parallel, it decided to recognise a provision amounting to €92.4 million to deal with future compensation payments to customers of its British subsidiary, TSB, who were affected by problems caused by the connection of a new IT platform developed by Sabadell.

With this measure, the bank wants to shelve the technological crisis that it suffered in the United Kingdom and also leave its balance sheet almost completely free of the toxic assets that it accumulated during the economic crisis. Specifically, during the first six months of 2018, Sabadell decreased its problem assets by €7.012 billion, and by €9.547 billion during the last twelve months. Now, the problem balance amounts to €7.911 billion, of which €6.669 billion are doubtful debts of all kind (not only real estate) and €1.242 billion are foreclosed properties. Thus, the ratio of net problem assets over total assets amounts to 1.7%. The default ratio following the portfolio sales amounts to 4.5%.

As at 30 June 2018, the bank’s fully loaded CET1 capital ratio amounted to 11%, although that will rise to 11.2% following the transfer of the majority of the toxic assets, closed in July.

The bank led by Jaime Guardiola has sold the bulk of its non-performing and foreclosed loans to Cerberus, with whom it is going to create a joint venture in which the fund will hold an 80% stake. The entity has also sold portfolios to Deutsche Bank and to Carval Investors. Solvia has not been included in any of those transactions and will continue to be fully owned by Sabadell.

Between January and June, Sabadell increased the volume of its live loan book by 3.7% thanks to a boost from SMEs and mortgages to individuals in Spain. Customer funds increased by 2.8% YoY driven by demand deposit accounts, which amounted to €105.4 billion. Off-balance sheet funds also grew, by 1.2%, during the quarter, primarily due to investment funds.

During the first half of the year, Sabadell’s interest margin remained stable, given that the entity earned practically the same amount as it did in the six months to June 2017 (€1.81 billion). The bank has been affected by exchange differences and a reduction in results from financial operations (-51%); by contrast, fee income grew by 6%. Thus, the gross margin fell by 8.8% to €2.631 billion.

The reaction of investors to these results has been negative. Sabadell’s share price fell by 2.99%, the third largest drop on the Ibex, to €1.37. So far this year, the bank’s share price has depreciated by more than 14%.

Original story: Expansión (by Sergi Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Orion: CaixaBank Launches the Sale of Another €600M in Doubtful Loans

23 July 2018 – Voz Pópuli

CaixaBank’s divestment machine is not shutting down, even for a second. The entity led by Gonzalo Gortázar has just closed the largest real estate sale in its history, a €12.8 billion portfolio, which it has sold to the fund Lone Star, and it has already launched another new operation.

The latest deal is Project Orion, through which CaixaBank wants to transfer a €600 million portfolio of problem loans to opportunistic funds, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli. Unlike on other occasions, the portfolio does not comprise loans to property developers but rather credits to small- and medium-sized entities (SMEs). The loans are secured by real estate collateral, be it property purchased by the delinquent SMEs or other property offered as collateral when asking for a loan for business activity.

Project Orion was launched a few weeks ago and is expected to be closed after the summer. Currently, interested parties are immersed in the non-binding offer phase.

From flats to loans

The former Caixa is placing this portfolio on the market to reduce its volume of doubtful assets, having eliminated its foreclosed assets from its balance sheet. The entity agreed with Lone Star the sale of €12.8 billion in flats, land and developments for €6.7 billion.

On Friday, CaixaBank presents its results for the first half of the year, which will show the first snapshot of the entity following the agreement with Lone Star.

In addition to that agreement, the entity sold a portfolio of €650 million in problem loans to Cerberus, as part of Project Ágora.

Following those operations, CaixaBank is left with €3 billion in rental homes and €13 billion in doubtful loans on its balance sheet, in net terms.

The market expects the entity to make another major divestment of doubtful loans over the coming months, by selling an even larger portfolio than Project Orion. With that, the Catalan entity would be in a strong position to launch its new strategic plan, which it will announce at the end of the year.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Santander to Reduce its Toxic Assets to Zero by September

17 July 2018 – El Economista

Banco Santander is on the verge of saying goodbye to the great burden left behind after the crisis: the delinquent loans and properties. The entity is preparing for the sale this summer of a portfolio of toxic assets worth between €5 billion and €6 billion, which would leave its balance sheet virtually clean of property. The bank headed by Ana Botín is planning to close the operation, which is already underway, before the start of September, according to market sources.

In this way, the entity would manage to get rid of almost all of its leftover real estate in just one year. After acquiring Banco Popular, the bank saw its non-performing assets increase by €41.1 billion. Nevertheless, it found a quick exit after putting the portfolio containing all of Popular’s properties, worth €30 billion gross, on the market.

In August, Santander closed that operation after transferring half of the assets to Blackstone, for a net value of €5.1 billion. The operation saw the two entities, the bank and the fund, create a joint venture to which all of the property was transferred and in which Blackstone holds a 51% stake and the bank the remaining 49% share.

The management of the assets is now in the hands of the fund. The company, which was constituted in the spring of this year, is called Quasar Investment, and also holds the assets that used to be held by Aliseda, the servicer of Popular. Now, the bank is looking to get rid of this final portfolio almost exactly a year later.

At the end of March this year, the last date for which data is available, the bank had a real estate exposure in Spain of around €10 billion, of which 50% was provisioned. The bank already announced at its most recent results presentation that its aim was to leave its balance sheet practically free of those assets during the course of this year.

For the time being, the funds potentially interested in the portfolio include Cerberus, Lone Star and Blackstone. Specifically, those three funds have starred in the largest portfolio purchases from banks in the last year.

In November, BBVA announced the sale of 80% of its property to the fund Cerberus. The entity transferred a portfolio comprising around 78,000 real estate assets with a gross value of €13 billion for a price of €4 billion. In this way, the bank positioned itself as the Spanish entity with the fewest toxic assets on its balance sheet with an exposure of €4.775 billion, accounting for just 1.5% of its total assets in Spain.

CaixaBank has been one of the last entities to announce a major operation. That bank closed the sale of 80% of its real estate on 28 June to the fund Lone Star and it transferred it 100% of its servicer Servihabitat. The gross value of the real estate assets amounted to €12.8 billion, and the net book value was around €6.7 billion. Once CaixaBank has completed the repurchase of 51% of Servihabitat (an operation that was announced on 8 June and whose execution is pending authorisation from Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission), the entity will transfer the real estate business to a joint company with Lone Star, in which it will retain a 20% stake.

S&P determined in a report published last Thursday that the Spanish banks are going to struggle to fully clean up their balance sheets of toxic assets despite the accelerated rate of operations that are being carried out. Analysts recognise that, although the entities are increasingly close to putting an end to their delinquency problem, it is going to be hard to completely clear the ground due to the poor quality of the remaining assets.

Original story: El Economista (by Eva Díaz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA & Sabadell Finalise Negotiations with the FGD to Sell their ‘Protected’ Toxic Assets

17 July 2018 – Expansión

The two banks are looking to remove their remaining damaged assets from their balance sheets. Sources in the sector calculate that the FGD will have to assume a cost of around €3.5 billion.

The Deposit Guarantee Fund (FGD) and BBVA and Sabadell are on the verge of reaching a definitive agreement that will allow the two banks to sell the majority of their damaged real estate assets that are protected by the FGD in order to clean up their balance sheets.

The fund will know exactly what the cost of the protection is and, in exchange, the banks will assume a greater percentage of the potential losses. Calculations from experts in the sector indicate that the cost that the FGD will have to bear amounts to around €3.5 billion.

The negotiations that have been going on for months between the heads of the FGD, led by Javier Alonso as the Chairman and Deputy Governor of the Bank of Spain, and BBVA and Sabadell, as well as the Ministry of Finance and the other financial institutions, are on the verge of reaching an agreement that will enable the two banks to get rid of the majority of their damaged real estate assets in operations similar to the ones undertaken by both Santander with Popular’s assets and more recently by CaixaBank.

The formula is the same: the two banks group together in a new company, or several new companies, the damaged assets and they sell the majority of the share capital in those companies to an investment fund, holding onto a minority stake that typically amounts to between 10% and 20%. In this way, the banks deconsolidate their real estate positions and their balance sheets look clean.

The problem that BBVA and Sabadell have had is that a large part of their assets to be sold are protected by a guarantee until 2021 whereby the FGD committed to bear the cost of 80% of any losses incurred, on the book value of those assets, when they were sold. This has been the case for the last few years (Sabadell has already sent three annual invoices to the FGD for losses over the last three years and BBVA has done the same for the last two years). And so that will continue until the end of the guarantee period.

Original story: Expansión (by Salvador Arancibia)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Realia Starts Building Homes with the Launch of 5 Developments

1 July 2018 – Expansión

The real estate company controlled by Carlos Slim has resumed its property development business with the launch of five new promotions, comprising 594 homes that, when they are handed over, will generate revenues of €208 million.

Realia is planning to continue to launch new developments on the portfolio of land that it owns, but it is also investing in new plots, such as the one it purchased recently from the Ministry of Defence in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) for €27.5 million.

This is the first acquisition of land that the company made since the Mexcian magnate took control, which saw it join the wave of investments that companies in this area are undertaking in the land segment in light of the reactivation of the sector.

Nevertheless, after Realia stopped building homes at the beginning of the crisis, it now has a land portfolio spanning 1.85 million m2. The company says that it now has some of these plots under development in Madrid, Cataluña and Levante, areas that currently account for the greatest demand in terms of housing.

The real estate company includes the launch of new developments as a key strategy in the new phase that it is undertaking following the clean-up carried out since Slim acquired his share capital

This week, at its General Shareholders’ Meeting, Realia said that it is “ready” for the new real estate cycle, following the reduction and restructuring of its debt and the cutback in expenses, measures that it considers “are already reflected in the income statement”.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA Reduces the Property Portfolio that it will Transfer to Cerberus by 12%

17 May 2018 – Expansión

BBVA is not holding back in its strategy to reduce its exposure to the real estate sector ahead of putting the finishing touches to its agreement with Cerberus. The entity has already cleaned up some of the portfolio that it will transfer to the US fund in September.

Between the reference date for the operation – the end of June 2017, and March this year, the date of the most recent audited accounts -, the bank has decreased its foreclosed assets by 12% – those assets proceed from unpaid residential and property developer mortgages.

The bank is going to create a joint venture with the US fund to reduce its real estate exposure in Spain to almost zero. BBVA will sell 80% of that joint venture to Cerberus for an estimated price of €4 billion. But that amount may vary, depending on the volume of foreclosed assets that end up being transferred.

Initially, a portfolio with a gross asset value of around €13 billion was defined. By March, the entity’s foreclosed assets balance had decreased to a gross value of €11.541 billion. Most of the portfolio comprises finished buildings and land, which are easier to sell now thanks to the recovery of the real estate sector.

To cover its gross risk, BBVA has recognised provisions amounting to €7.073 billion, which reduces its net exposure to €4.468 billion. The coverage ratio of the foreclosed assets amounts to 61%.

Sources at BBVA explain that the portfolio that is going to be transferred to Cerberus also includes the ‘other real estate assets’ caption. The bank’s gross real estate exposure, including both concepts, amounted to €12.472 billion in March compared with €14.318 billion in June 2017.

Until the close of the operation, which is scheduled for September, the assets to be transferred to the joint venture will not be finalised. “Under no circumstances will transferring fewer assets result in a loss to the income statement. In fact, this operation is not expected to have a significant impact on the income statement”, explain official sources at the entity.

Solvency

The agreement with Cerberus will improve BBVA’s solvency. In March, the bank saw its core capital fully loaded ratio worsen to 10.9%. But the transfer of the real estate portfolio to the fund and the sale of its business in Chile will improve that metric to 11.5%.

BBVA has loaned Cerberus €800 million to finance part of its purchase of the real estate portfolio from the bank. The loan has a term of two years and will not accrue any interest. The fund will repay the debt in a single payment on the maturity date.

Spain’s financial institutions have stepped on the accelerator to clean up property from their balance sheets following Santander’s macro-operation to deconsolidate real estate risk amounting to around €30 billion proceeding from Popular (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Sampedro)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Who are the Key Players in the Spanish Real Estate Market?

4 May 2018 – El Mundo

House sales are on the rise, as are house prices and rentals. Mortgages are also continuing their upward trend. Moreover, the resurgence of real estate activity is now a reality that can be seen in the increase in the number of new construction and real estate companies.

A recent report published by Gedesco, a firm specialising in financing for companies, says that one in four of the businesses created in Spain during the first quarter of 2018 belonged to the construction or property development sectors.

That represented a volume of almost 6,000 companies, 1.75% more than during the same quarter in 2017. With respect to the last three months of last year, the increase amounts to 21.9%.

Some good news to help us try to forget the fact that 142,576 construction companies disappeared between 2008 and January 2017 – both building firms and property developers -, according to the latest data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).

In eight years, the sector went from having almost 360,000 companies to having just 216,987, a reduction of 39%. If we take the look at real estate companies, there were 106,375 in 2008, whereas there were just 67,812 by 2017, almost half.

The data compiled by INE reveals another interesting fact: the construction companies that had more than 5,000 employees in 2008 have disappeared. Although there were actually only three (including building firms and property developers), by 2017, there were just nine companies with 500 or more workers.

Names such as Martinsa Fadesa – created by the businessman Fernando Martín-, Astroc (chaired by Enrique Bañuelos) and Nozar went into the history books of the Spanish real estate sector, after failing to survive the impact of the recession.

Good health

Now, the outlook for the sector is looking healthy, in line with the increase in construction activity, which last year recorded a 28.9% increase in new build permits, to 80,786. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Development, corresponding to the first two months of this year, new home permits rose by 17.4% to 8,035 in February. Estimates in the sector indicate an output of 150,000 homes p.a. for the next few years.

For Elisa Valero, Marketing Director at Gedesco, “the construction sector is back in business”. Nevertheless, the director adds that “the creation of businesses has never gone away, if we look back a few years, the property developers were still there, but the volume of business creation was much lower”.

Whereas 5,000 companies are now being created, in 2011 – at the height of the crisis – just 2,000 were being constituted (…).

Success stories

Another report published in recent weeks by the College of Registrars in Spain also shows that real estate activity in the country is gaining momentum. In 2017, the weight of construction companies and property developers over the total number of businesses constituted rose to 20%, and the rate of growth in relation to 2016 was 14%.

But, looking beyond the figures and back to specific cases (…) we see, for example, that two of the largest property developers of the current cycle were created less than three years ago. The firms in question: Neinor Homes and Aedas, which were created in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

The origins of Vía Célere, another of the important property developers these days, dates back to 2007, at the height of the crisis. The firm emerged after Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado sold the company that he had chaired, Agofer, and created Vía Célere.

In all three cases, the presence of funds in the shareholding of the companies has stimulated their rates of investment to purchase land on which to build new homes.

Second chances

On the list of property developers that have been created recently, highlights include Kronos Homes, Stoneweg and Q21 Real Estate.

There is another noteworthy name on the current panorama, which, although it cannot be considered a new company, is a clear example of the resurgence of a business after the crisis. The company in question is Metrovacesa. Following a facelift by its creditor banks, it returned to the stock market at the beginning of this year, after abandoning it in 2013.

The firm, controlled by BBVA and Santander, stands out since it is the largest landowner in Spain, amongst the listed property developers, with 6.1 million m2 of land spread over the whole country, with the capacity to build 37,500 homes.

Business transformations such as the one involving Metrovacesa were commonplace during the crisis and resulted in the appearance of new players on the real estate stage.

Another illustrative example has been the birth of the so-called servicers. These companies have emerged in recent years from the former real estate subsidiaries of the banks.

Altamira (whose origins are found in Banco Santander), Servihabitat (La Caixa), and Solvia (Banco Sabadell), amongst others, are fulfilling the mission entrusted to them: to take on the bank’s property, enabling them to complete their clean-ups and to divest the assets by taking advantage of the current boom in activity.

The servicers, whose main activity is located in the Community of Madrid, are also responsible for selling the properties of another one of the stars created in recent years: Sareb, commonly known as the bad bank.

In 2018, that company celebrates its 5th birthday, and during its short life, it has taken over the properties of the entities that have been intervened as a result of the bank restructuring (…).

In recent months, Sareb has also started to market its first new build developments constructed on own land that it holds in its portfolio. In addition, last week, it launched a campaign to sell 3,314 homes along the coast, 95% of which will be lived in for the first time by their new owners.

The Socimis

If there is one group of players that stands out above all of the other newly created real estate companies it is the Socimis.

The real estate investment companies started to trade on the Spanish stock exchange in 2012 as a result of a regulatory change introduced by the Government that gave them free reign to do so.

The Socimis Entrecampos and Promorent were the first to make their debuts. Six years on, there are 51 such companies and, according to some estimates, that number may reach 100 in the future. Merlin, Axiare, Hispania, Lar España, Testa and Colonial – the largest by volume – have all been created in the last four years and are now competing with property developers, such as Neinor and Aedas, on the real estate stage and on the stock market.

In April, one of the newest faces, Sareb’s Socimi Témpore, made its debut. In its first month on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB), it has seen its share price appreciate by 3.85%. When it made its stock market debut, the company’s valuation amounted to €152 million (…).

Original story: El Mundo (by María José Gómez-Serranillos)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Includes its own RE Manager in the Popular Divestment Deal

3 May 2018 – La Información

Blackstone’s real estate platform, Anticipa, is going to collaborate with Aliseda – founded at the time by Popular – in the management of its voluminous property portfolio. The US fund acquired Anticipa in 2014 when it was awarded Catalunya Caixa’s portfolio, and it has just taken control of Aliseda, as part of the mega-operation signed with Santander. The Cantabrian group included the real estate platform, together with a dozen real estate companies, in the €30 billion gross portfolio of properties that it transferred to the new company, in which Blackstone owns 51% of the capital and Santander held onto the remaining 49%.

Blackstone decided not to merge the companies but they are going to collaborate together, according to information submitted to the market about the syndicated loan signed to close Popular’s transaction. The toxic exposure divested by Santander in the deal known as “Project Quasar” has been valued at €10 billion net, given that there was a provision cushion amounting to 63% of the original value in the case of the foreclosed assets and 75% in the case of the loans.

The transaction was structured with the contribution of 30% in capital and 70% in debt. The bank and the fund are going to contribute almost €3 billion in capital and the remaining almost €7.333 billion will proceed from a financial structure led by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, together with Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Parlex 15 Lux, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Sof Investment. The operation has been advised by the law firm Allen & Overy, amongst others.

The “Neptune” portfolio constituted to obtain the financing includes Aliseda in the perimeter along with numerous real estate companies and stakes held in them by Popular, including Tifany Investments, Corporación Financiera ISSOS, Pandantan (Mindanao), Taler Real Estate, Vilarma Gestión, Marina Golf, Popsol, Elbrus Properties, Cercebelo Assets, Eagle Hispania, Las Canteras de Abanilla and Canvives. A large proportion of the assets transferred are plots of land, together with residential homes, industrial warehouses, commercial properties, offices, garages and almost €1 billion gross exposure in hotels.

This operation is going to allow Santander to dramatically reduce its exposure to foreclosed assets from €41.1 billion to €10.4 billion – a figure that is reduced to a net of €5.2 billion thanks to the provisions it has recognised amounting to 50% of the initial value – but enabling it to benefit from the divestments as a shareholder of the company receiving the portfolios with a 49% stake.

The plan includes the use of Socimis

The fund’s divestment plans include constructing or transferring some of the assets to Socimis, a vehicle that Blackstone has made use of for previous operations because it offers tax benefits such as avoiding the need to pay Corporation Tax if they distribute dividends. In gross terms, residential assets accounted for almost one-third of the perimeter of the original properties involved in the transaction.

After leaving the Popular portfolio in the hands of Blackstone, Santander still has €4 billion net in foreclosed assets and €1.2 billion in doubtful financing that it wants to get rid of soon. The bank plans to repackage the assets by batch and put them on the market, where half a dozen entities and Sareb are exploring how to get rid of almost €48 billion gross – the bad bank alone is looking for a buyer for the €30 billion whose sale is being managed by Haya Real Estate, and Sabadell has several batches up for sale amounting to almost €11 billion.

The Cantabrian group acquired Popular when it had closed the chapter to clean up its real estate and now it wants to return to that position quickly. It was its real estate division to leave behind the “red numbers” this year or by the early stages of 2019 at the latest.

Original story: La Información (by Eva Contreras)

Translation: Carmel Drake