Tag: risk ratings agency

27 March 2017 – Expansión

The banks have put a red circle around 2017 in their calendars, as the year when the doubtful portfolios that have hurt them so hard in the past and that are still denting their balance sheets even now, will show signs of life. Some of the entities may end up generating more profits than they initially expected.

And Blackstone is leading the way. The US giant has created a securitisation fund containing some of the non-performing loans with a nominal value of €6,000 million that it purchased from Catalunya Banc in 2015 for almost €3,600 million. Two years later, and after restructuring many of the credits, the investment group has decided that the time has come to capitalise on its investment.

It will do so with the sale to investors of a portfolio containing €403 million of these formerly delinquent loans. It represents Blackstone’s second foray into this field. Last year, the firm opened fire with the first securitisation of structured loans in Europe, although now it is redoubling its efforts given that the volume up for sale is 52% higher.

The fund comprises 3,307 residential mortgages granted in Spain, with a loan to value (credit over the value of the home) of 60.9%. Almost 80% of these mortgages have been restructured and many of the borrowers are up to date with their repayments. Meanwhile, there has been no change to the rest, according to information that Blackstone has provided to Moody’s to allow the risk ratings agency to make its assessment.

Profits

Blackstone’s aim is to sell this portfolio to investors in order to materialise some of the gains obtained from the management of the non-performing loans. In all likelihood, the securitisation fund will be placed below its nominal value, but at a much higher level than Blackstone paid when it acquired the mortgages from Catalunya Banc, before the State intervened entity was acquired by BBVA.

In exchange, Blackstone will offer different coupons to investors, depending on the type of mortgages that they take on.

The fund has been divided into five tranches, depending on the risk. The first has a very high level of solvency and so will pay annual interest of 3-month Euribor plus a spread of 0.90%.

The second and third tranches, which still have high or intermediate solvency ratings, will pay premiums over Euribor of 1.9% and 2.5%, respectively. The fourth tranche is ranked below investment grade and will pay a return of 2.6%.

The objective of Blackstone and the three banks that it has engaged for the securitisation (Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank) is that the operation will be completed next week.

A new market

This second securitisation by Blackstone is clear confirmation that a new market has opened up for buyers of delinquent portfolios from the banks. In fact, sources from several investment banks are confident that there will be a significant volume of secondary operations of this kind this year, where the new owners of the bank’s non-performing loans will sell their positions to other funds and to the market alike, through securitisations. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Inés Abril)

Translation: Carmel Drake