Tag: unblocking

3 May 2017 – El Mundo

The CEO of BBVA, Carlos Torres, has confirmed that the bank expects to have digested all of the property on its balance sheet by 2020 and has stated that the entity is already working on accelerating the “unblocking” of those assets.

“We have been digesting them for years, but we still have two or three years of losses left before we resolve the problem completely. We are working on it”, he said at a press conference for the presentation of the entity’s results for Q1 2017.

The director clarified that the bank managed to reduce its real estate exposure by 9% during the first three months of 2017, thanks to the implementation of its strategy to accelerate the “unblocking” of its assets in a better market environment than seen in previous years.

In this sense, he pointed out that, at the moment, demand for housing is growing, construction has resumed and prices are rising, which means that the entity has a positive outlook that is encouraging it to accelerate the reduction of these assets.

Torres said that the bank has been reducing its exposure to real estate for years, to the point that it now has just half the volume left that it reached at the “peak” in terms of net exposure.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake