Tag: clean-up

Sabadell Cuts its Property-Related Losses by 50% in Q1 2018

3 May 2018 – Eje Prime

Sabadell’s real estate weighs down on its income statement by half as much as it did a year ago. The bank’s losses resulting from the property business decreased from €161.1 million to €84.8 million in just one year, according to figures published by the bank at the end of the first quarter of 2018.

The division of the financial entity that manages its property (the Asset Transformation Unit) recorded a negative result but gave the bank reason to hope. Sabadell justified the improvement to the increase in the gross margin on real estate, which rose by 57%, to €30 million, as well as to the 50% decrease in provisions and the impairment of the portfolios, with respect to the opening quarter of 2017.

Moreover, the bank is continuing to work on cleaning up its balance sheet of toxic assets. Its latest move in this regard involved the launch of a sales process for a real estate portfolio worth €7.5 billion, for which several funds are already bidding. Three of them, Cerberus, Blackstone and Lone Star, have been testing the water with the entity by suggesting that the operation, which is expected to be closed in the summer, should also include its servicer Solvia.

In this sense, during the first quarter, Sabadell increased its coverage ratio over doubtful debt in its real estate business from 56.7% to 62.7%. Thanks to that, the bank is able to apply higher discounts on the sale of its portfolios without having to incur losses that would negatively affect its income statement. Currently, the portfolio of inherited real estate assets that the entity chaired by Josep Oliu still maintains is worth almost €12 billion.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA, CaixaBank & Sabadell Recorded Revenues of €5bn from House Sales in 2017

2 April 2018 – Expansión

Last year, BBVA, CaixaBank and Sabadell recorded revenues of more than €5,065 million from the sale of homes that came onto their balance sheets due to non-payment during the years of the crisis. Santander obtained €1,295 million in this regard, and Bankia and Bankinter received €457 million and €138 million, respectively. In total, the banks in the Ibex 35 recorded sales of €6,955 million from the sale of homes, which represented a YoY increase of 6%.

In parallel to the signing of agreements to launch the transfer of the bulk of their portfolios of toxic assets to specialist funds, year after year, the banks are marketing properties through their own distribution platforms to clean up their balance sheets and return them to the figures that they registered before the outbreak of the crisis.

BBVA recorded the highest revenue figure, of €2,121 million, which represents an increase of 7.5% YoY, from the sale of 25,816 properties. Its subsidiary Anida is responsible for distributing its products in the market.

By the end of last year, BBVA’s exposure to the real estate sector had decreased by 37.2%, to €6,416 million, due, primarily, to the wholesale operations undertaken.

Last year, the bank chaired by Francisco González made a turn in its real estate strategy by agreeing to create a joint entity with Cerberus to which it will transfer some of its properties, worth around €13 billion. The bank will hold a 20% stake in that entity and the fund the remaining 80%. The operation is expected to be closed during the second half of 2018.

Last quarter

The largest increase in the sale of homes was achieved by CaixaBank, which saw its revenues rise by 20.4% YoY to €1,610 million. Most of those operations were concentrated in the final quarter of the year when proceeds of €561 million were received.

Through Servihabitat, CaixaBank markets the properties of the group’s subsidiary BuildingCenter online, as well as through the branch network and API. The bank has €5,878 million in foreclosed assets up for sale and €3,030 million allocated for rent.

The bank has engaged KPMG, Oliver Wyman and McKinsey to redefine its strategy and gain efficiencies in the divestment of the foreclosed real estate assets.

As part of that roadmap, last week, CaixaBank sold 1,458 homes to Testa for €228 million.

Meanwhile, Sabadell cut its property sales by 14% to €1,334 million due to fewer sales to institutional investors, which fell from €233 million in 2016 to €57 million a year later. Last year, Sabadell divested 14,924 properties, up by 2.6% compared to the previous year. Its subsidiary Solvia is its main distribution channel.

In parallel, Sabadell has placed two toxic real estate portfolios up for sale, proceeding in part from the former CAM, under advice from KPMG.

Last year, Santander recorded revenues of €1,295 million from the sale of foreclosed assets, which represented a YoY increase of 19.5%. The gross value of the assets sold by that bank last year was €2,168 million, up by 33% compared to the previous year. Santander obtained profits of €95 million from its sales, up by 64%.

Altamira is Santander’s distribution platform, which held €11,661 million in foreclosed assets at the end of 2017, of which €5,943 million proceeded from Popular. To that figure, we have to add €3,619 million in assets from Popular included in the operation agreed with Blackstone, which will allow the clean up of the group’s toxic assets (…).

Finally, Bankia sold 8,430 properties in 2017, which represents 20.2% of the stock it had held at the beginning of the year, for which it recorded revenues of €457 million, down by 2.9%. Bankinker, one of the banks with the lightest real estate load obtained €138 million, up by 2.2%.

Original story: Expansión (by Elisa del Pozo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone & Santander Finalise the Transfer of Popular’s Portfolio

22 March 2018 – Eje Prime

Blackstone and Santander are signing their agreement. Sources close to the operation have explained that the two groups are on the verge of sealing the deal that will see Blackstone take control of 51% of the share capital of the new company that is going to be created with the €30 billion in real estate assets from Popular. The new entity is going to be known as Quasar.

The US fund is also going to be responsible for managing the new company and its CEO is going to be Eduard Mendiluce, who is also the most senior executive at Anticipa, the other large real estate company that the fund owns in Spain, according to Expansión. Santander will own the remaining 49% of the shares in Quasar.

The new Project Quasar Investments has agreed to take out a syndicated loan for €7.3 billion from a group led by Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. Blackstone itself is participating in the loan, through one of its subsidiaries, which will see it contribute €1 billion or 14% of the financing.

In parallel, the fund and Santander are going to contribute €3 billion in share capital to the company, which will amount to more than €10 billion. It is worth remembering that Popular’s non-performing loans were appraised at €10 billion, the book value at which they have been registered on the bank’s balance sheet after the clean-up carried out by Santander.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Sintra: BBVA Engages PwC to Sell €1bn of Toxic Loans

13 March 2018 – Voz Pópuli

BBVA does not want to waste any more time on the real estate clean-up exercise. In the last few days, the entity chaired by Francisco González has launched a €1 billion portfolio on the market: Project Sintra, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli. It is being advised in the operation by PwC. Neither the bank nor the consultancy firm wanted to comment.

This portfolio is the penultimate step for BBVA in the reduction of its real estate exposure to zero, after the agreement it reached with Cerberus to transfer €13 billion of foreclosed assets, as this newspaper revealed. That sale, Project Marina, is still pending the necessary authorisations and is scheduled to be closed in the middle of this year.

The balance of BBVA’s divestments is as follows: before Project Marina, the entity had a gross exposure (not including provisions) of almost €16 billion, which will end up at just over €3 billion. Of that figure, two-thirds relate to unpaid loans linked to land and completed developments, with a coverage ratio of 54%.

With this new operation, BBVA wants to be crowned as the first major entity to get rid of its inheritance from the crisis. Last year, Santander closed the sale of €30 billion from Popular to Blackstone, but it still has €11.7 billion left to divest.

The same stars

With Project Sintra, BBVA has now awarded the mandate for three consecutive operations to PwC. It did so with Project Jaipur, worth €600 million, which was acquired by Cerberus; and Project Marina, which had the same advisor and buyer.

The latter operation generated unease amongst certain funds, which complained to the bank because it had not opened a competitive process, but instead chose to negotiate one on one with Cerberus. Sources close to that operation defended that a bilateral sale could optimise both the price and an auction, thanks to the threat of opening the process to more rivals.

In this way, BBVA is one of the entities that has decided to accelerate the sale of portfolios during the first quarter, like Sareb, which is finalising the sale of between three and four packages: Nora, Bidasoa, Dune and Slap, with a combined volume of €3.2 billion.

One of the most fashionable assets and one that entities are increasingly including in their portfolios is land. In this way, Sareb is preparing an operation containing land only and Kutxabank is evaluating a similar process.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

A&M: Spain’s Top 5 Banks Cut Their Toxic Assets to Below €100bn

18 February 2018 – Voz Pópuli

Good news for the banks. The heavy burden of recent years, their exposure to real estate, is causing less concern, little by little. The work undertaken over the last year has allowed the large institutions to reduce their volume of problem assets (doubtful and foreclosed loans) to less than €100 billion.

That is according to the findings of a report from the consultancy firm Alvarez & Marsal based on figures at the end of 2017: the five largest banks (Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank, Sabadell and Bankia) decreased their toxic assets from €145 billion to €106 billion. That calculation does include the transfer of €30 billion from Popular to Blackstone – which will be completed within the next few weeks, – but not the sale of €13 billion from BBVA to Cerberus.

Taking into account the latter operation, the level of toxic assets held by the five largest banks amounts to €93 billion, having decreased by 36% since 2016. Those figures do not include exposure to other entities that also made significant efforts in this regard during 2017, such as Liberbank.

According to the report, after all of the events of last year, CaixaBank is the entity that now has the largest volume of problem assets on its balance sheet, with €27 billion. The group chaired by Jordi Gual has engaged KPMG to undertake a large divestment of its foreclosed assets, but that it is taking longer than expected.

The second-placed entity in the ranking is Santander, with an exposure of €25 billion, which in net terms (after provisions) amounts to €13 billion. Its CEO, José Antonio Álvarez, announced a few months ago that he expects to divest around €6 billion this year.

The third bank in the ranking is BBVA, with €21 billion, before the sale of €13 billion to Cerberus. Once that operation has been closed (scheduled for the end of the first half of this year), it will be the most healthy entity, with the highest levels of coverage.

Plans underway

Sabadell is another of the entities that has made the greatest efforts to liquidate its property in recent months. It decreased its balance from €19 billion to €15 billion in 2017 and is planning big sales this year, provided it receives approval from the Deposit Guarantee Fund.

Meanwhile, Bankia has actually increased its exposure, by integrating BMN, although it will not reveal its plans in this regard until it unveils its next strategic plan (at the end of this month).

The bulk of the work in the sector has now been completed. Nevertheless, the home straight still remains, which is what will be tackled this year, to a large extent. With this, the banks will be able to turn the page and dedicate their resources to granting credit rather than to covering past losses.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Funds Acquired €60bn of Banking ‘Assets’ in 2017

3 January 2018 – El Economista

International funds’ appetite for Spanish real estate is proving insatiable. And that was reflected in the final days of 2017, which saw a frantic year-end in the market for the sale by banks of debt portfolios secured by real estate collateral. On the basis of the operations that were underway during the final months of the year and the transactions that were actually closed, it is estimated that debt with a gross book value around €60 billion was sold in 2017, compared to €22 billion in 2016. Of that total volume, Blackstone was, undoubtedly, the great star, with its acquisition of the largest real estate portfolio ever sold in Spain and one of the largest ever sold in Europe.

The US fund agreed with Santander to purchase 51% of all the toxic assets – doubtful loans and foreclosed properties – from Popular, which had a gross value of €30 billion. A record operation in Spain, which the bank chaired by Ana Botín closed to clean up the balance sheet of the recently acquired entity.

Cerberus was the other major purchaser of 2017, after it acquired Anida and BBVA’s real estate assets with a gross value of €13 billion, through the creation of a joint company in which the fund will hold a majority 80% stake and BBVA will retain a 20% share.

Those two operations are a clear reflection of the dynamic role that funds are playing in the Spanish real estate market, given that in addition to having provided the impetus for the new generation of property developers, they are also serving as the main clean-up tool for financial institutions. “The funds have played a fundamental role, given that they have put a price on the portfolios and have provided capital to execute purchases”, explains Manuel Ángel González Mesones, Partner in Corporate Finance for the Financial sector at KPMG in Spain, who states that in the primary market – the sale of portfolios directly by the banks – property developers, the other great consumers of debt with real estate collateral “have not been particularly active, given that their criteria are very selective”. Nevertheless, “the large property developers have been buying foreclosed assets in a selective way for years from both financial institutions and different market players, such as Sareb and funds that have acquired those assets through the purchase of portfolios”.

In this sense, Emilio Portes, Director of Financial Advisory at the real estate consultancy firm JLL, highlights that, although the role of the funds has been key, the property developers have also played their part, by converting themselves into “instrumental vehicles for the funds in terms of the development of the land acquired in portfolios such as NPLs – doubtful loans – and REOs – foreclosed assets”. Thanks to that intense activity in which, in addition to Blackstone and Cerberus, other players have also featured, including Bain, Goldman Sachs, Oaktree, De Shaw, Deutsche Bank, Lone Star and Apollo, the banks have managed to decrease the volume of toxic assets relating to the real estate sector by almost half in one year, from more than €132 billion to around €75 billion. To that figure, we have to add the €40 billion sold by Sareb, which means that the total clean up figure amounted to €115 billion by the end of 2017.

That figure is still well below the almost €400 billion that was reached at the height of the crisis, but it also well above the less than €10 billion that was registered before the burst of the bubble (…).

More moderate operations in 2018

According to González, “Activity will continue to be significant, but due to the size of the entities that still have assets let to sell, I don’t think that we will see such large operations this year. The focus will certainly be more on transactions with nominal values of between €500 million and €2,000 million, although that could lead to an equally successful year…”.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

CPPIB Buys €800M RE Portfolio from Sabadell

20 December 2017 – Eje Prime

With year-end just around the corner, the major players in the real estate sector in Spain are putting the pressure on to close operations. Such is the case of Sabadell, which has just sold a portfolio of real estate assets worth €0.8 billion to the Canadian fund Canada Pension Investment Board (CPPIB) for approximately €0.2 billion.

This investment giant, which channels investments worth €210 billion, has won the auction for Project Voyager, through which the entity chaired by Josep Oliu is divesting €0.8 billion in problem loans linked to the construction, SME and hotel sectors, according to Voz Pópuli. The other finalists were Deutsche Bank, Bain Capital and Cerberus.

The completion of this agreement will represent CPPIB’s first investment in Spain; the fund is known for its conservative profile. With this sale, Sabadell will comfortably exceed its annual target of reducing its volume of problem assets by more than €2 billion. As at the end of September, it had decreased the balance by €1.764 billion, to just over €15.5 billion.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Morgan Stanley Lends Cerberus €3bn to Purchase BBVA’s RE

1 December 2017 – Voz Pópuli

Of the cheque for €4 billion that BBVA is going to receive for the sale of its foreclosed real estate, €3 billion will be coming from Morgan Stanley’s coffers. The US investment bank has been awarded the mandate to finance Cerberus’s operation, whereby fighting off competition from other international and Spanish entities, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli.

Unlike in the case of Blackstone and Popular-Santander, Cerberus has decided to close its financing arrangements in advance, even though the small print of the agreement will still take a few months to negotiate.

As this newspaper revealed, BBVA has agreed to sell all of its foreclosed assets to the US fund in an operation worth €5 billion. A new company will be created to which assets worth €13 billion and the Anida platform with its 450 employees will be transferred, with the option of also moving another 150 employees from the bank. And Cerberus will buy an 80% stake in this company for around €4 billion.

The figures may still vary slightly over the next few months, given that both BBVA and the fund have to review which assets have exited the portfolio in recent months because they have been sold (through the network).

The start

The operation, known as Project Marina, was launched at the beginning of June and is expected to be closed with a discount of approximately 61%, which is lower than the 67% that Santander obtained from its sale of Popular’s real estate.

That sale – Project Quasar – is also pending completion, expected during the first quarter of 2018.

After removing €13 billion in foreclosed assets from its balance sheet, BBVA will put one or more property developer loan portfolios on the market over the next year or so, as it continues to accelerate the digestion of its property assets. Those portfolios will be similar in size to Project Jaipur (€0.6 billion), which was also awarded to Cerberus.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Deutsche Bank: BBVA & Unicaja Cut Their Toxic Assets By 15% In 2017

14 November 2017 – Expansión

Deutsche Bank report / Sales to institutional investors of non-performing loans and properties allowed BBVA to reduce its stock by €4,589 million. Meanwhile, Unicaja has decreased its load by €818 million.

The clean up of the banks’ balance sheets is picking up speed thanks to the increasingly common sales of large property portfolios to specialist funds.

Between January and September, the average decrease in the stock of the large banks amounted to 6%; moreover, that figure reached 15% in the case of BBVA España. The next entity in the ranking was Unicaja, with a decrease of 14%.

During the third quarter, Santander España distorted the statistics with the sale of 51% of Popular’s toxic assets (€30,000 million) to Blackstone.

Project Jaipur

BBVA has closed several institutional sales in recent months. One of them, Project Jaipur, was sold to Cerberus, the fund with which it is now negotiating a macro-operation, which would include the sale of its real estate platform Anida. That portfolio comprises loans to property developers backed by real estate guarantees and has a gross nominal value of €600 million.

In February, BBVA sold a batch of 3,500 properties to the fund Blackstone. Another one of the representative operations of the year was the sale of 14 office buildings to Oaktree for €200 million.

Unicaja has sold several plots of land to various real estate developers in recent months. “Unlike in other quarters, during the third quarter of the year, most of the reduction in the banks’ problem assets came from the sale of foreclosed properties, despite the substantial decrease in activity in August”, says the recent report from Deutsche Bank.

Between June and September, CaixaBank was the most active entity, with sales worth €380 million.

The report cites several factors to explain the intensification of this real estate clean up. The first is the increase in the coverage ratio of these toxic assets on the banks’ balance sheets. “The volume of sales is directly linked to the coverage ratio”, it says.

The second is that many of these sales are generating capital gains. According to the data compiled by Deutsche Bank, Unicaja made €40 million in the third quarter and CaixaBank and Sabadell earned €6 million and €7 million, respectively. “These gains will allow them to accelerate future sales”, says the report.

Final quarter

The last quarter of the year tends to be the strongest for these types of operations. Sareb has put a package of doubtful loans up for sale, the vast majority of which are unsecured, for €2,600 million. “We expect to see an additional effort from the banking institutions to reduce the stock at year end. Having said that, the political uncertainty in Cataluna and the upcoming elections may affect prices and/or cause delays in institutional sales”, says Deutsche Bank, which forecasts further stock decreases of 15% in 2018 and 2019. According to its data, CaixaBank, Santander and BBVA are the banks with the highest volume of toxic assets. Since 2015, BBVA has decreased its real estate balance by 27% and Unicaja by 24%.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Lander)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Liberbank’s RE Clean-Up Exercise Echoes Santander’s Deal For Popular

30 October 2017 – Expansión

Liberbank has learned the lesson that Santander taught the market a few months ago when it teamed up with Blackstone to divest almost all of the damaged real estate risk that Popular had held. The bank led by Manuel Menéndez has now also joined the trend of selling most of the capital of a new company, but retaining a stake in it so as to benefit from the future recovery in real estate prices.

The entity, which has just launched a capital increase amounting to €500 million, has also announced that it has created a company using real estate assets that have a book value of €602 million; Bain Capital will own the majority stake (80%), and the remaining 20% will be shared between the bank itself, with a 9.9% stake, and Oceanwood, with a 10.1% stake. Oceanwood is an investment fund that is the largest individual shareholder in Liberbank, with a stake of just over 12%, after the stakes held by banking foundations that gave rise to the entity.

Under pressure

The European supervisory authorities and the main international investment funds are putting pressure on the European banks to divest their toxic assets as soon as possible in order to recover the profitability lost in recent years, having overcome the worst of the financial crisis (…).

When Santander purchased Popular for €1, the first decision that it made public was that of putting all of Popular’s problematic real estate assets up for sale.

To that end, it decided to increase the coverage ratio of those assets to more than 60%, charging it against Popular’s reserves, to allow it to find a buyer more easily. In the end, it decided to accept Blackstone’s offer, which valued the entire real estate portfolio at €10,000 million and which saw the investment fund acquire 51% of the new company and Santander hold onto the remaining 49%. For Santander, the operation was attractive because it allowed it to immediately recover €5,100 million, it removed Popular’s real estate risk from the balance sheet and it left the door open for the entity to recover more money in the future to the extent that Blackstone proceeds to sell the new company’s assets.

Liberbank has done the same, although in a smaller proportion. In its case, the volume of assets is substantially smaller, €602 million compared to €30,000 million in Popular’s portfolio; moreover, its share of the new real estate company is also much smaller; it will be left with a 9.9% stake, whilst Santander owns 49% of its company.

But the result is similar. Liberbank is removing a very significant percentage of the damaged real estate risk from its balance sheet by the same means as Santander did. Raising the coverage ratio of these assets to a sufficient percentage so that an investment fund like Bain Capital Credit, and also Oceanwood, are willing to invest a not inconsiderable amount of money.

Investment

If the valuation of Liberbank’s assets is the same as those of Popular, Bain and Oceanwood will have invested just over €230 million in the operation.

A notable difference with respect to Popular’s operation is that there is a third player in Liberbank’s case. The fund Oceanwood, the bank’s largest shareholder after the banking foundations, which has also committed to participating in the capital increase in an even higher proportion to the amount that corresponds to it based on its current stake, has also decided to form part of the new real estate company, which will be constituted as a Socimi. Those two decisions may be interpreted as a clear commitment that the entity will be worth more in the future than it is at the moment and as a clear vote in favour of the current management team (…)

Original story: Expansión (by Salvador Arancibia)

Translation: Carmel Drake