Tag: doubtful loans

Spain’s Top 7 Servicers Manage 80% of the AuM

15 March 2018 – Expansión

The recovery of the Spanish economy, the reduction in unemployment, the improvement in household income and the decrease in financing costs, together with investors’ appetite for property, have contributed to the configuration of a new real estate map.

One of the distinctive features of the current scenario is the entry of new players, which are absorbing the loans and banking credits associated with real estate assets, mostly homes, and which have taken control of part or all of the servicers, created out of the banks’ former real estate subsidiaries.

These companies have gained prominence and have become a key piece of the real estate market. According to the Trends and Prospects in the Real Estate Sector report, prepared by Axis Corporate, more than 80% of the assets under management are in the hands of Altamira, Servihabitat, Haya, Anida, Aliseda, Anticipa and Solvia, which together have around €220 billion of financial assets under management. Specifically, Altamira – owned by Apollo (85%) and Santander (15%) – controls 22% of the market, with €54.1 billion in financial assets under management. It is followed by Servihabitat –owned by Texas Pacific Group (51%) and Caixa (49%)–, which has a market share of 17%, with €41.1 billion in AuM; Haya (Cerberus), with a market share of 16% and €39.4 billion in AuM; and Anticipa and Aliseda, in which Blackstone holds stakes, which manage 14% of the market between the them, or €35.1 billion.

Meanwhile, Solvia, owned by Sabadell, manages €31 billion, which represents 13%; and Anida, the real estate subsidiary of BBVA, manages around €15.3 billion.

For Luis Fernández de Nograro, Managing Director of Financial Services and Real Estate at Axis Corporate, most of these types of management companies are owned by investment funds whose plans do not involve staying put and industrialising the companies, and so, their exits will happen gradually. That is the case of Cerberus, which is exploring the possibility of debuting Haya Real Estate on the stock market.

For José Masip, Partner of Real Estate at Axis Corporate, the servicers are going to follow the path established by the financial institutions, which will involve concentration in the sector. Moreover, the future of these companies anticipates the implementation of value differentiation strategies that may range from: specialising in the management of rental properties, to the operation of an owned commercial network, to innovation over traditional channels and to their commitment to greater internationalisation in the management of assets or the development of land and promotion activity.

Similarly, the experts point to an acceleration in the sale of toxic assets by the banks to funds and Socimis. Together, the sector divested more than €50 billion in doubtful loans and foreclosed land in 2017 alone, which represents almost twice the figure (€27.4 billion) sold between 2012 and 2016.

Socimis

Another new group of players highlighted in the report are the Socimis, which have contributed to the regeneration of the real estate sector, reactivating investment through tax-optimised vehicles, according to the consultancy.

The report points out that, last year, 17 new Socimis made their debuts on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB), which now has a total of 44 vehicles of this kind. In total, the market value of the listed Socimis exceeds €19 billion.

For Axis Corporate, these types of companies will experience continuous growth until 2019 and the majority will maintain their commitment to the tertiary sector. Sources at the consultancy indicate that there are five Socimis listed on the main stock market, but that just two are in the Ibex 35: Merlin and Colonial. For that reason, they consider that it is very likely that, in the future, there will be mergers, acquisitions and new IPOs.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

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

BBVA Sells Majority Stake in its Real Estate Portfolio to Cerberus for More Than €5bn

28 November 2018 – Voz Pópuli

BBVA has closed a real estate mega operation. The entity chaired by Francisco González has agreed to sell the majority of its problem assets to Cerberus, in a deal worth between €5 billion and €6 billion, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli. The Spanish group will receive a cheque for between €3.5 billion and €4 billion for the majority stake in a new company that will be controlled by the US fund. After months of intense negotiations, the bank and the fund decided to seal the deal at the beginning of this week. Whilst we wait for the official figures to be made public, financial sources indicate that the real estate package for sale amounts to between €13 billion and €14 billion (as this newspaper revealed) and comprise around 70,000 properties. The assets sold are valued with a discount of around 60%. The parties involved all declined to comment.

The discount is lower than that agreed for the sale of Popular’s property, which amounted to 67%. Santander sold €30 billion with a valuation of €10 billion. Blackstone paid €5.1 billion for 51% of that company.

After signing the agreement, the two parties will request time to review the small print of the contract and to obtain the necessary authorisations. In this case, approval must be given by the Deposit Guarantee Fund (FGD).

According to the latest figures, BBVA has real estate exposure amounting to €17.8 billion on its balance sheet. Of that amount, foreclosed assets (€11.9 billion) and doubtful loans (€3.4 billion) account for €15.3 billion. Those loans and properties have a coverage ratio of more than 61%.

A sale like the one that Cerberus has agreed will leave BBVA as one of the largest groups with the smallest real estate exposure in Spain, something that investors and regulators have been demanding for years.

This agreement arose as a result of a meeting between González and the President of Cerberus worldwide, John W. Snow, at the beginning of July. The US banker – and former US Treasury Secretary, under the presidency of George Bush junior – proposed this operation to the President of BBVA after his firm was left out of the sale of Popular’s property.

The operation has been managed by the operations team at PwC, led by Jaime Bergaz. The law firms Linklaters and Ashurst have worked alongside him, and on the buy side, the consultancy firm Deloitte. All of the parties involved have been working on this operation non-stop for several months. The deal only came close to dying during the worst moments of the Catalan crisis, given that a lot of BBVA’s real estate assets are located in that region.

Following this acquisition, Cerberus consolidates its position as one of the largest real estate investors in Spain, alongside Blackstone. The fund controls Haya Real Estate, which manages assets on behalf of Sareb, Bankia, Cajamar and Liberbank. With BBVA’s assets, it takes on one of the most sought-after portfolios in the sector.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga and Miguel Alba)

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

BBVA Awaits FGD’s Approval To Sell €14,000M RE Portfolio To Cerberus

13 November 2017 – Voz Pópuli

The largest operation of the home stretch of 2017 is pushing ahead. BBVA and Cerberus are close to reaching an agreement regarding the sale of a large proportion of the bank’s real estate assets to the US fund. Financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli indicate that a deal may be signed within the next few weeks, between late November and early December.

One of the points still being discussed is the perimeter (of the transaction). The sources consulted indicate that what is on the table is the option of selling a stake in a new company with assets and loans worth €14,000 million.

The same sources add that an agreement could have already been reached if it hadn’t been for the crisis in Cataluña and the need for the Deposit Guarantee Fund (‘Fondo de Garantía de Depósitos’ or FGD) to give its approval. BBVA received an asset protection scheme (‘Esquema de protección de activos’ or EPA) for which the FGD committed to cover “80% of the losses resulting from a portfolio of assets worth €7,359.7 million”.

BBVA has real estate exposure on its balance sheet amounting to €17,774 million in total, according to the most recent figures. Of that figure, foreclosed assets (€11,937 million) and doubtful loans (€3,357 million) account for €15,300 million. Those loans and properties have a coverage ratio of more than 61%. For this reason, BBVA could sell them for 39% of their appraisal value without having to recognise any losses. Even so, the FGD would still need to approve any deal.

The need for consent from the FGD could delay any asset sale for several months. That is what has happened, on more than one occasion, to Banco Sabadell, such as with Project Normandy. It is worth remembering that the FGD’s Management Committee comprises not only regulators and Government members but also bankers, who do not want to spend even one more euro of their resources (…).

Although BBVA’s sale (known as Project Marina and Sena) is on track, the sources consulted indicate that it could all be thrown up in the air at any moment. “It would not be the first time that an operation that has almost been finalised dies off because of one of BBVA’s management committees or Board of Director meetings”, they say. The same thing is happening with Cerberus, one of the most inflexible funds when it comes to price: “Once the price has been fixed, it is very difficult to move it or play with counter-offers”, they add.

This operation has generated a lot of commotion amongst other opportunistic funds, many of whom were not invited to participate, and who have even indicated their displeasure to BBVA’s leaders. The negotiations between Cerberus and the bank arose after the fund’s President, John W. Snow (former US Treasury Secretary) cracked the whip over his own management team in Spain. He did so after Cerberus missed out on the sale of Popular’s real estate, which was awarded to Blackstone.

Snow himself decided to come to Madrid in person to meet with the President of BBVA, Francisco González (pictured above) and propose an operation similar in size to Project Quasar (Popular). Indeed, Cerberus purchased a €600 million portfolio from the bank in June, Project Jaipur, which gave rise to the current negotiations.

Although the operation still hangs in the balance, BBVA has never been as close to sealing an agreement like this one. There is a lot of optimism amongst the advisors to the operation, PwC and Linklaters. But, for the time being, anything can happen.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cajamar Puts €200M Debt Portfolio Up For Sale

23 October 2017 – Expansión

Cajamar, the largest credit cooperative in Spain, with €39,943 million in assets, has placed a package of 1,450 delinquent loans on the market worth €200 million. The majority of the loans have been granted to small- and medium-sized companies and are secured by mortgage guarantees.

By autonomous region, 75% of the portfolio is located in the Community of Valencia and Andalucía; and the remaining 25% is situated in Murcia, Cataluña, the Community of Madrid and Castilla y León.

It is the first package of non-performing assets that Cajamar has put up for sale this year. In 2016, the entity completed two divestments of this kind. The first, closed during the second quarter, comprised doubtful and non-performing loans, as well as foreclosed properties, amounting to €524 million in total. The second, sold during the fourth quarter, contained non-performing loans only, amounting to €206 million.

As at 30 June, Cajamar held €3,885 million in doubtful loans and had a default rate of 12.38%. It had €3,776 million in real estate assets on its balance sheet. Of those, 50% are finished homes and 25% correspond to land. The group has prioritised sales through the retail channel, for which it enlists the support of its assets sales platform, Haya Real Estate.

The entity has just launched a commercial campaign that offers more than 4,000 properties with discounts of up to 40%. They include one-bedroom apartments in Alhaurín el Grande (Granada) with prices starting at €46,000.

Operating range

Cajamar has 1,090 branches across Spain, a workforce of 5,743 employees and 3.5 million clients. During the first half of the year, it earned €44.29 million. It holds an agreement in insurance with Generali, another in investment funds with Trea and it sells consumer loans from Cetelem.

Above all, the entity is dedicated to meeting the financing needs of small and medium-sized companies in the agri-food sector.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Lander)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The ECB Demands Higher Provisions For Doubtful Debts From 2018

10 October 2017 – Cinco Días

The ECB has proposed a tightening of the provisions required by banks for any loans that they classify as doubtful from 1 January onwards. The ECB has subjected the draft legislation, currently posted on the body’s website, to public consultation. The standards that the supervisor is preparing complement those published in March of this year. In this way, banks will have to set aside more money from 2018 onwards to cover 100% of the loans that they reclassify, in other words, those that go from being standard to doubtful. The ECB will establish different terms depending on the type of loan: those that are secured by a real estate asset may be provisioned at 100% over seven years from the date of their reclassification. For loans without any type of guarantee, entities will have just two years to constitute the 100% provision.

The provisions will be applied on a linear basis from the date of recognition of the doubtful debt until the date the coverage ratio equals 100%, but national supervisors may require the recognition of provisions more quickly in certain cases. Moreover, loans that are partially covered by real estate assets must be provisions in two parts and with two doubtful rates.

In March, the ECB published a handbook for doubtful loans to be applied to portfolios of doubtful loans already in existence. It demanded that entities undertake procedures to reduce this load that, in its opinion, is restricting banks’ ability to grant new loans. The handbook is not binding, but banks will either have to “comply or explain”. In other words, they will have to comply with the handbook or explain why they are not complying with it. It also requires that they set specific objectives to reduce their existing portfolios.

Based on the response from entities and the evolution of doubtful balances, the supervisor will present new proposals,at the end of the first quarter of 2018, to attack the excess volume of toxic loans in the banking sector. According to the supervisor, the so-called “significant entities” (almost all of the banking system in Spain and 130 in total in Europe) held €865,000 million in doubtful assets during the first quarter (after that balance decreased by almost €100,000 million in one year). “Many entities have made significant progress and have submitted credible strategies that include reduction plans, but others still have a way to go to improve”, said the ECB.

In March, doubtful loans accounted for 47.05% of the total bank loan book in Greece, 17.75% in Ireland, 19.82% in Portugal and Italy. Based on this criteria, the figure for Spain amounted to 5.86%, but its level of foreclosed assets was very high.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Nuño Rodrigo Palacios)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The IMF Commends Sareb’s “Effective” Management & Divestment Progress

10 October 2017 – El Diario

On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) commended the “effective” management of Sareb and its progress in the asset divestment process, which has enabled the real estate company to liquidate 22% of its portfolio and 20% of its debt in its four years of life.

“To date, Sareb has fulfilled its objectives quite well, and the review of its business strategy seems to be well designed”, acknowledged the supervisory body in its latest report evaluating the Spanish financial sector.

Nevertheless, it adds that the company, created in 2012 to help with the clean-up of the banking sector, will face challenges in the future.

In its report published on Friday, the IMF refers to: the highly sensitive nature of Sareb’s activity to the evolution of real estate prices; the financial expenses that the entity must pay to service the debt that it took on to purchase assets back in the day; and the “stiff competition” from the banks, which are also divesting their real estate portfolios.

Even so, the body endorses the progress that Sareb has made to reduce the perimeter of assets received from the financial institutions by so much, as well as to service its commitments to repay its debt, which is guaranteed by the Spanish Treasury.

For the IMF, behind this progress, is the “effective” approach that Sareb applies to managing the portfolio, and which includes strategies for “the transformation of loans into properties, the recovery of loans, the sale of assets and the reactivation and sale of suspended projects”.

In the opinion of the institution, which is headquartered in Washington, Sareb is continuing to play a “critical role in the preservation of financial stability”, and therefore recommends greater involvement of the authorities in the preparation of the entity’s business plan.

The report that the IMF published on Friday focuses on analysing the weight that doubtful loans still play in the Spanish banking sector, which is still high despite the transfers that were made to Sareb when it was created.

In this sense, the international body echoes the initiative that the so-called “bad bank” has launched to give greater dynamism and transparency to the sale of loans, through an online platform, which is now operational, albeit in the pilot phase, on the company’s website.

Original story: El Diario

Translation: Carmel Drake

Liberbank Finalises Property Sale To Ensure Success Of Capital Increase

4 October 2017 – Cinco Días

Liberbank does not want to follow in the footsteps of Popular and is taking firm strides to avoid that fate. Its focus now is on shaking off the property that it still holds following the crisis, in order to project the image in the market that it has cleaned up its books and to ensure the success of its upcoming capital increase. In this way, the entity is finalising the sale of a large part of its portfolio of foreclosed assets this week, in parallel to the capital increase, which its General Shareholders’ Meeting is expected to approve on 9 October.

The entity led by Manuel Menéndez is working against the clock to ensure its independence. The CNMV has given it until 30 November to extend, for the third time, a veto on short positions that it imposed in June, a few days after Popular’s future was resolved. Sources close to the operation expect the first stage (the sale of a portfolio worth €800 million) to be closed this week. Or within 15 days, at the latest, since in that case, it would be performed in parallel to the start of the capital increase.

Liberbank received the first binding offers at the beginning of last week. And from those, it has selected three funds: KKR, Bain and Cerberus. The latter is the firm that acquired the bank’s real estate subsidiary, Mihabitans, in the summer, through Haya Real Estate. It spent €85 million on that purchase. The market described the operation as a “success” and uses it as an example for the upcoming sale of the toxic property.

Haya is exclusively managing the current foreclosed real estate assets on Liberbank’s balance sheet, as well as any future foreclosed real estate assets that end up being incorporated onto the bank’s overall balance sheet or onto those of any of its real estate subsidiaries. According to the accounts for the first half of the year, Liberbank held €3,115 million in foreclosed assets on its balance sheet, with a provision coverage ratio of 40%. Of those, €1,741 million are finished homes, €1,162 million are plots of land, €480 million are homes under construction and €402 million are offices and warehouses.

This new sale of foreclosed assets, dubbed ‘Operación Invictus’, will be closed for a price of around €400 million. Although the book value of the real estate assets in the portfolio is €800 million, the sale will be closed at a discount of at least 50%. Santander closed the sale of 51% of Popular’s property to Blackstone at a discount of 66%.

With the aim of wiping out the losses that this sale will generate and of getting rid of a large part of its real estate portfolio, once and for all, the Board of Directors of Liberbank proposed a capital increase on 6 September, which they are now trying to safeguard. The bank hopes to raise €500 million through the operation. The objective is for the bank’s default ratio to amount to 3.5% by 2019 and for the coverage ratio on its non-performing assets (doubtful loans and foreclosed assets) to rise to around 50%. At the end of June, Liberbank recorded figures of 11.3% and 40% for these ratios, respectively.

With a balance sheet of €40,000 million, Liberbank is the smallest entity of those supervised by the ECB, together with Banco Crédito Social Cooperativo, the parent company of Cajamar. One of Liberbank’s other missions is to increase its return on equity (ROE) to 8% by 2020, compared with the figure of 2.7% recorded during the first half of this year. It is the second time that the bank has increased its share capital since it started trading on the stock market in 2013. The previous capital increase, in May 2014, saw it raise almost €500 million.

Then, the bank responsible for coordinating the operation was Deutsche Bank; now it is being managed by Citi. Last time, the injection of fresh funds allowed the entity to early repay €124 million that the FROB (Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring or ‘Fondo de Reestructuración Ordenada Bancaria’) had injected it with; to strength its top-tier capital ratio to more than 10%, as if the Basel III requirements were completely applicable; and to bring forward the payment of dividends to its shareholders.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Álvaro Bayón and Pablo M. Simón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Creates A Portal To Sell €3,000M In Loans

29 September 2017 – Expansión

Sareb, the company in charge of liquidating the real estate portfolio of the nine savings banks rescued by the State, is seeking to streamline this process through an online channel aimed at institutional players only. The objective is to market more than €3,000 million in delinquent loans through the channel in 2018 alone, as the entity revealed yesterday at a conference with investors organised by SmithNovack in London.

With this portal, Sareb is seeking to not only enhance the transparency of these types of operations but also open up a new channel for smaller investors to be able to access the market. Ignacio Meylán, Director of Institutional Sales at Sareb, said that this initiative forms part of the innovation efforts being undertaken by the company, which is owned 45% by the State and 55% by private investors.

Milestones

During a preliminary pilot phase, the company invited around thirty investors to access a selection of loans, worth around €400 million, in such a way that they are able to submit bids on a loan-by-loan basis.

Meylán explained yesterday that the investors who have registered on the platform will have the opportunity to study the documentation and information relating to each loan, and then formulate their bids in limited and differentiated time periods.

Sareb is expecting to receive bids during the first half of October. The ultimate objective is to expand the core group of investors interested in these assets and, further down the line, take these types of products to local investors interested in acquiring the properties, both residential and other, that secure these loans.

Next year, the bad bank plans to launch six sales processes through this online channel. Each one will include loans worth at least €500 million, and so, it will end up putting a minimum of €3,000 million in toxic assets on the market in a single year.

Portfolios

In addition to this initiative, Sareb has just placed Portfolio Inés on the radars of the opportunistic funds. The portfolio comprises delinquent loans with a nominal value of €500 million. The entity hopes to close the transaction in October. The bad bank is also working on the launch of another portfolio, called Tambo, whose volume amounts to between €250 million and €300 million. The final quarter of the year is typically the most active for divestments of this kind.

The European authorities calculate that Europe’s financial entities hold almost €1 billion (€1,000,000,000,000) in doubtful loans on their balance sheets and that they are making their viability difficult in many cases.

A new record will be set in this market this year, since the start of the crisis, due to the Popular operation, the largest in the history of Spain, which was awarded to Blackstone.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake