Tag: Jordi Gual

CaixaBank Completes the Sale of 80% of its RE Business to Lone Star

20 December 2018 – La Vanguardia

Today, CaixaBank has completed the sale of 80% of its real estate business to two subsidiaries of the US fund Lone Star for around €4 billion.

The operation was formalised on Thursday, after the necessary approvals were obtained, according to reports from CaixaBank, which has specified that this real estate package primarily comprises assets available for sale as at 31 October 2017 and 100% of the company Servihabitat.

All of these assets have been transferred to a newly created company called Coral Homes.

The initial sales price for 80% of the share capital of this company is €3.974 billion, which corresponds to a valuation for 100% of the shares of €4.967.5 billion.

Nevertheless, the initial price will be adjusted up or down over the coming months depending on a series of variables that are typical in these types of operations, said the bank chaired by Jordi Gual and whose CEO is Gonzalo Gortázar.

In parallel to the sale of the real estate portfolio, CaixaBank and other companies in the group have signed a servicing contract with Servihabitat for their real estate assets, present and future, for a period of five years.

The global impact of the operation is estimated to be a loss of €40 million net of taxes.

Meanwhile, the impact of the deal on the fully loaded CET 1 capital ratio is estimated to be an improvement of 15 basis points.

Aura advised Lone Star on this purchase.

Original story: La Vanguardia 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Operation Tramuntana: CaixaBank Assesses Offers Worth €200M

31 May 2017 – Voz Pópuli

CaixaBank is accelerating the sale of Project Tramuntana, one of the largest divestments that the Spanish bank is currently working on. The entity chaired by Jordi Gual is looking to sell off almost €600 million in unpaid loans linked to real estate developments.

The three funds that have progressed through to the final round of the process are: Cerberus, Deutsche Bank and Bain Capital, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli. Those funds have reportedly put offers on the table of around €200 million for the portfolio during the non-binding offer phase.

They now have one more week to analyse all of the loans in the portfolio before submitting their binding offers, given that the cut-off date that was initially stipulated for this sales process was 8 June. With this, CaixaBank wants to be certain about who has won the bid by the middle of next month, so as to have all of the paperwork ready to close the agreement before the end of the first half of the year and whereby include the results in its half-year accounts.

CaixaBank sold the second largest volume of problem assets in Spain in 2016 (€2,100 million), after Banco Sabadell (€2,800 million) and ahead of Abanca (€2,100 million), Sareb (€1,400 million) and Bankia (€1,100 million), according to data from Deloitte.

Buyers

Project Tramuntana is almost a replica of an operation closed last year, Project Carlit, in which CaixaBank sold a portfolio of loans worth €850 million to Goldman Sachs. In addition, the entity sold hotel loans to Apollo.

Of the buyers left in the running, Cerberus is the one that most urgently wants to purchase the portfolio, given that it did not win any of the processes that it participated in last year. The US fund needs to accumulate assets in order to leverage its two platforms in Spain, Haya Real Estate, which it purchased from Bankia, and Gescobro.

Bain Capital, meanwhile, was the largest buyer of bank portfolios in Spain last year, acquiring real estate assets and debt worth €1,700 million from Sabadell, Bankia, Cajamar.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank also had a busy year. On the one hand, it bought assets from several entities, such as the case of the Ocean portfolio, from Bankia, but it also sold the majority of the problem assets held by its own bank in Spain. They were purchased by Oaktree, which forced the entity chaired by Antonio Rodríguez Pina to recognise a provision amounting to €68 million.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake