The non-performing loans (NPL) ratio is back to its lowest level since November 2008. It is now at a level similar to that at the end of 1980, when the BdE’s historical series began.

The NPL ratio of Spanish banks stood at 3.30% at the end of February, slightly below the 3.33% recorded in January, according to preliminary data published by the Bank of Spain.

This brings the NPL ratio back to its lowest level since November 2008, when it stood at 3.21%, after rising to 3.33% in January. It is also 30 basis points lower than the ratio recorded in February 2024, when it stood at 3.62%. The current level is similar to that recorded at the end of 1980, when the Financial Supervisory Authority’s historical series began.

In terms of the volume of NPL, they fell by 364 million euros in February to 38,995 million euros, while the year-on-year reduction was 3,258 million euros.

Moreover, the reduction in the NPL ratio was also supported by an increase in the loan portfolio: at the end of February the stock stood at 1,183 billion euros, an increase of some 1,560 million euros compared with January. On the other hand, compared with February 2024, the volume of bank loans had increased by some 16.6 billion euro.

The data broken down by type of institution show that the ratio of doubtful assets of all deposit-taking institutions (banks, savings banks and cooperative societies) ended February at 3.21%, four basis points lower than in the previous month and 29 basis points lower than in the same period of 2024.

In absolute terms, this type of institution recorded a decrease of 343 million euro in its doubtful assets portfolio to 36,325 million euro. Compared with February 2024, the figure is around 2,922 million lower.

The NPL ratio of credit institutions increased slightly to 5.86%, two basis points more than in January. On a year-on-year basis, it fell by 73 basis points.

The volume of doubtful loans of this type of institution at the end of February was 2,492 million euro, eight million less than the monthly variation, while the doubtful balance was reduced by 328 million euro compared to the same month of the previous year.

Finally, according to the Bank of Spain, provisions for all credit institutions amounted to 28,828 million, 128 million less than in January, while the year-on-year variation showed a reduction of 1,203 million.

Original Story: Idealista News | Author: Europa Press / Ana P.Alarcos
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Cajamar continues to clean up its non-performing assets. The bank has transferred a new portfolio of foreclosed assets, mainly residential, to the KKR fund. The assets, included in the so-called Eros II project and sold to the fund, have a gross value of 14.2 million euros.

In recent months, the company has also placed the Atenea II portfolio with specialists Goriz Advisor and Gannet. With a volume of 17.5 million euros, the latter portfolio consisted of 200 NPLs (non-performing loans) secured by mortgages.

These are very small operations compared to those transferred in recent years, but they continue to improve the quality of the balance sheet and place the management of non-performing assets in the hands of specialists.

The institution ended the year with 1,318.8 million in non-performing assets, having reduced its exposure to foreclosed assets by 31.5% (527.81 million) and its exposure to non-performing loans to 1.93%, one of the lowest in the sector. Its exposure to doubtful loans fell to 791.05 million and it maintains provisions covering 72% of these risks.

Like the rest of the banking sector, the bank frequently resorts to the sale of non-performing assets. Recent transactions include the transfer to Balbec Capital of 136 million in healthy and non-performing loans in the Utrecht project.

Cajamar has also concluded transactions with Waterfall Asset Management, involving the sale of doubtful unsecured loans; with LC ASSET 1, Lindorff, Bain Capital, Link Financial and GCBE Advanced Solutions (formerly Gescobro), among others.

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

KKR & Co. Inc. is in advanced talks to sell its Spanish real estate management company Hipo to Pollen Street Group Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The discussions are ongoing and KKR could still decide not to pursue the deal or select another people added, asking not to be named discussing private information.

Original Story: Bloomberg | Author: Jorge Zuloaga
Edition: Prime Yield

Last year, Spanish banks sold portfolios of toxic assets for a total value of €6.7 billion, including a portfolio of €1.5 billion from Sareb, according to a compilation by Axis Corporate (Accenture).

If we add the transactions that took place in the secondary market between the private equity firms themselves, the amount rises to €17.86 billion, a volume similar to that of 2023, but half the historical record of 2018. At the same time, Ana Botín suddenly transferred all of Popular’s real estate risk (€30 billion) to Blackstone.

Santander was the most active bank last year, with seven transactions of toxic asset portfolios for a total of €1.8 billion. CaixaBank is next in the ranking, having transferred batches of non-performing loans and real estate for a total of €973 million.

Sabadell follows with €938 million.

Sareb, the vehicle in which the toxic assets of the nine savings banks bailed out during the financial crisis are parked, transferred 1.5 billion in unpaid loans to Axactor in one fell swoop.

According to Accenture, this year will see an acceleration in the sale of real estate risk assets by Sareb, as its legal dissolution is imminent. This is scheduled for 2027, although the government has the power to extend the deadline.

The size of portfolios changing hands has fallen sharply in recent years. The size of 78% of portfolios is less than €500 million.

Going forward, Accenture predicts that most buyout activity will focus on unsecured and refinanced loans.

€73.5 billion of NPL to be unwound

The clean-up of Spanish banks’ real estate assets is well underway after almost twenty years. But there are still €73.5 billion worth of toxic assets to be unwound.

Santander is the bank with the largest real estate holdings on its balance sheet: €36 billion. It is followed by BBVA with €15.327 billion. And CaixaBank with 10.352 billion.

Unicaja made a clean sweep last year and its stock of toxic assets fell by 14%. Its risk volume (€1.348 billion) is similar to that of Bankinter, which did not lend to property developers in the years before the property bubble.

The private equity firms Cerberus, Blackstone, Lone Star and Axactor are the ones that have fattened their portfolios with toxic assets from Spanish banks over the last decade.

Between the four of them, they have acquired €97.35 billion of real estate risk owned by the banks or bought back from other private equity firms. This is half of the €207.52 billion that have changed hands, according to Axis Corporate data.

The real estate legacy still to be liquidated is now reduced and so well provisioned that portfolio sales no longer cause losses in the income statement.

Original Story: Expansión | Author: R.Lander
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Together with KKR, its reference shareholder, Hipoges has created a vehicle to invest in mortgage debt. Starting with an initial endowment of €100 million, it will focus on the acquisition of small portfolios of non-performing loans (NPL) and real estate owned (REO) in Spain and Portugal through transactions of between €5 million and €25 million. The idea began to take shape at the end of 2023, crystallised last summer with the assembly of the corporate structure to complete its first purchase, and since September has already completed four transactions, reveals to elEconomista.es Pelayo Puche, Executive Director Advisory of Hipoges and promoter of the vehicle.

The fund, called PSD Lux, ‘is the first company that Hipoges has created specifically to actively buy portfolios’, he explains. It is common for servicers to co-invest with their clients in order to ‘align interests’, and Hipoges has done some similar deals in the past, although they are almost exceptional and for very limited amounts. To date, it has not actively sought to acquire portfolios. Its plan for 2025 is to use the expertise it has acquired over the years in managing large portfolios in the banking sector to focus on developing business with financial institutions.

The rationale behind this commitment is that it sees an opportunity in “three very clear needs” in the market. Firstly, it wants to offer an additional service to bank clients for whom it already manages distressed portfolios: “Our usual clients have a portfolio size above which they do not pay attention because it is not big enough and the work involved in valuing a small portfolio is practically the same as that of a large one,” says Puche. In other words, there are neglected portfolios that he wants to pay attention to and thus strengthen the relationship with existing or new clients.

On the other hand, he sees opportunities in the secondary market, buying portfolios that the banks have sold long ago and which, after being managed for five, six or eight years, “are also starting to get too small and the owners, the funds that bought them at the time, are starting to stop paying attention to them because they are too small”. These are the so-called ‘tail’ portfolios, and his vision is twofold: to acquire such portfolios from client funds, so that ‘they keep the management in Hipoges’, and to ‘get a bit more assets under management’ by bidding for similar portfolios that the funds have with other servicers. Since the launch of the new vehicle, the company has closed four deals on bank assets that had not previously come to market, all with Spanish companies. Closing four will take us to 40 since September,” he says.

Movements in the sector

 The launch of the vehicle comes at a time when servicers are reinforcing or redefining their strategies in order to improve their positioning, also in the midst of the concentration process that the sector has been undergoing for several years and which could possibly include KKR’s exit from Hipoges. According to some media reports, the US giant has sounded out the appetite for the servicer, attracting the interest of funds such as DoValue, Arrow Global Group, J.C. Flowers & Co and Pollen Street Group. KKR bought 84% of Hipoges in 2017, with the rest of the capital in the hands of several of the servicer’s executives. An exit, which does not necessarily have to be completed, would be part of the natural turnover of assets in private equity firms. The company declined to comment on the hypothetical transaction.

The alliance with KKR confirms the good understanding with the shareholder, who did not want to abandon the project, while Hipoges continues its strategy of greater diversification in order to strengthen its market position and reduce its dependence on the core business of maintenance, with which it started operations in Spain in 2008. In fact, the creation of the fund is an initiative of Hipoges, whose teams will be even more responsible for the assets it incorporates. The paradigm shift with PSD is that they give us much more independence than we would have in a large portfolio. They put in almost all the capital, but they do less work than they would in a normal portfolio, they delegate more to the Advisory and Hipoges team,’ says Puche.

The €100 million in the vehicle is a start-up budget. The idea is to try to invest €100 million in the first year or two, and after that we will see how it goes and KKR will decide whether to give another 100 million or what to do,’ he says. The only asset class a priori ruled out for the fund is unsecured or consumer credit. Its preference is for assets that are in line with Hipoges’ core business, which is very much focused on residential mortgages for individuals, as well as corporate loans, especially to developers, and real estate. In terms of financing, the fund’s appetite includes both NPLs and refinancing or current loans, even if they have had a certain incidence in the last year (the so-called RPL or reperforming loans).

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Sareb has decided to suspend its housing sales activities for the next few weeks in view of the future transfer of its assets to the new public housing company to be created on the basis of the existing Entidad Pública Empresarial de Suelo (Sepes). According to El Economista, this decision will have a clear impact on the administrators Hipoges and Anticipa/Aliseda, who are in charge of selling these assets, which form part of the portfolio of the so-called bad bank, and whose mandate ends in August.

According to the newspaper, in the next few days Sareb’s board of directors will meet and a shareholders’ meeting will be convened to approve the cessation of commercial activity in the residential sector and to begin a period of analysis to define the scope of the assets to be transferred to the new public entity.

However, it seems that not all of the housing portfolios will be transferred, as initially announced, as it will be studied which properties make sense for social rental use, as the public company will give them.

Although most of Sareb’s portfolio is perfectly suitable for conversion to social rental housing, ‘there are specific developments or unique assets that, because of their location or nature, would not make sense to transfer to the new entity’, the sector explains.

Sareb itself must have a minimum level of income to keep its machinery running, not only for its own survival but also to be able to provide the new public entity with more housing. However, it is not clear to anyone that this slowdown in sales will have an impact on the business of the service providers responsible for this mission.

In 2022, the award of management and marketing services will swell the portfolio of properties and loans to around 25.3 billion euros.

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Alba Brualla
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

The Spanish banks’ non-performing loan (NPL) ratio stood at 3.32% at the end of December, the lowest level since November 2008 when it was 3.21%, according to preliminary data published by the Bank of Spain.

This is the fourth consecutive monthly fall: compared with November, it fell by six basis points, while compared with December 20-23, it fell by 22 basis points.

In terms of the volume of NPL, it fell to EUR 39,358 million in December, EUR 939 million less than in the previous month. Compared to December 2023, the reduction is  EUR 2,510 million.

In addition, the total stock of loans has also decreased: at the end of December the ‘stock’ stood at EUR 1.18 trillion, a decrease of around EUR 7,414 million compared with November. On the other hand, compared with December 2023, the volume of bank loans increased by EUR 4 025 million.

The data broken down by type of institution show that the ratio of doubtful assets of all deposit-taking institutions (banks, savings banks and cooperative societies) closed December at 3.24%, two basis points lower than in November and 20 points lower than in the same month of 2023.

For the twelfth month, the portfolio of doubtful assets of this type of institution decreased by EUR 612 million to EUR 36,599 million. Compared with December 2023, this figure is around EUR 2,169 million lower. For their part, financial institutions saw their NPL ratio fall to 5.65% in December, more than one percentage point lower than in November. Compared with December 2023, it fell by 68 basis points.

In absolute terms, the volume of doubtful loans of this type of institution was EUR 2,565 million at the end of December, EUR 344 million less than in November. Compared to the same month of the previous year, the doubtful balance was reduced by EUR 346 million.

According to the Bank of Spain, provisions for all credit institutions stood at EUR 28,902 million in November, a reduction of EUR 491 million on the previous month. Compared to the previous year, provisions decreased by EUR 968 million.

Original Story: Europa Press
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

The ratio of doubtful assets of financial credit institutions (EFCs), which specialise in consumer credit, closed below 6% in 2024, returning to pre-crisis lows, according to preliminary data published by the Bank of Spain.

Specifically, SCIs closed with a ratio of 5.65%, the lowest level since January 2020, according to the historical series published by the regulator. Compared with November, the fall is 1.07 percentage points, while compared with December 2024, the reduction is 68 basis points.

In terms of volume, the stock of doubtful assets of SCIs amounted to EUR 2,565 million at the end of December, EUR 344 million less than in November. Compared with the same month last year, the stock of doubtful assets was reduced by EUR 346 million.

The total amount of loans granted by financial institutions at the end of December was EUR 45,369 million, EUR 2,086 million more than in November. Compared with the same month in 2023, however, the volume of loans fell by EUR 601 million.

Lastly, the provisions of the SCIs to cover the doubtful balance stood at  EUR 1,776 million in December, EUR 83 million less than in the previous month and EUR 57 million less than the reserves in December 2023.

Original Story: Europa Press
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

The Council of Ministers approved the Credit Purchasers Act, which transposes the European Directive on the same subject and amends the Consumer Credit Contracts Act and the Real Estate Credit Contracts Act. The aim is to regulate the market for the purchase and sale of non-performing loans and to introduce certain obligations for mortgage and consumer credit borrowers.

Specifically, the bill regulates the purchase and sale of non-performing loans (NPL) granted by credit institutions and financial credit institutions, establishing common rules with the rest of the European Union.

The next step, once approved by the government, will be to send it to the Congress of Deputies for parliamentary processing.

Firstly, it regulates the activity of doubtful credit management, which consists of the collection or renegotiation of this type of credit, which becomes a reserved activity and requires prior authorisation from the Bank of Spain. In order to obtain this authorisation, the law establishes the need to have an “adequate” internal credit management system and a policy that “guarantees the protection and fair treatment of borrowers”.

It also regulates the purchase and sale of NPL, ensuring that the conditions and rights of borrowers are maintained and transferring to the purchaser of the loans the obligations of transparency, protection and information, including compliance with the codes of good practice to which the original creditor has subscribed.

The draft regulation sets out additional safeguards for the protection of borrowers, requiring both purchasers and servicers to provide “fair treatment and adequate information”, as well as an “adequate” borrower assistance and out-of-court redress service.

In order to ensure compliance with these obligations, the Banco de España will supervise the administrators, as well as the compliance of credit purchasers with these obligations, and will establish the corresponding system of infringements and sanctions.

Real estate and consumer credit

The sectoral regulations on consumer credit and real estate credit will also be amended to introduce the obligation for creditors to have a debt renegotiation policy. This means that creditors will have to offer their customers measures aimed at reaching renegotiation agreements before taking legal action or demanding full payment of the debt.

The regulation establishes special conditions for non-mortgage debtors in a situation of economic vulnerability who are recipients of the minimum subsistence income. In these cases, the lender who sells the doubtful loan to a third party must offer the borrower a payment plan in order to “protect the most indebted groups without undermining the payment culture”.

The Consumer Credit Law also introduces a limit on the amount of default interest that can be charged in the event of non-payment by the consumer, setting it at a maximum of the sum of ordinary interest plus three percentage points.

In addition, charges for the recovery of overdue amounts must be in line with the costs actually borne by the creditor and, in any event, after prior notification to the consumer, indicating the outstanding amount, the time available to settle the situation and the amount to be paid if the situation is not settled.

The cases of modification of the interest rate in contracts of indefinite duration (as in the case of revolving cards) are defined, allowing the customer not to accept the increases or to cancel the contract, in which case the customer may repay the outstanding debt in accordance with the repayment conditions and the interest rate in force at the time of the notification, at no additional cost to the borrower.

Finally, it clarifies the conditions of compensation for early repayment in the case of financing linked to the purchase of goods or services.

Original Story: MSN News Author: Europa Press
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Cajamar has completed a new sale of a an NPL portfolio. The company has placed the EUR 17.5 million Atenea II portfolio with specialists Goriz Advisor and Gannet. According to market sources, the portfolio consists of 200 NPL (non-performing loans) with mortgage guarantees.

The bank, like most banks, has been removing non-performing assets from its balance sheet for years in favour of funds and specialist investors in order to improve its risk profile. Until last year, it also had an agreement with Haya Real Estate, the servicer acquired by Intrum, for the management of its assets, but when it expired it decided not to renew it in order to deal directly and internally with its own resources.

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and Translation: Prime Yield

Santander continues to reduce its exposure to non-performing assets. According to market sources, the bank has sold a EUR 90 million portfolio of secured non-performing loans (NPL) to KKR as part of the Project Rock transaction.

This is not the first time it has placed assets with the fund. In 2023, KKR acquired a portfolio of nearly €200 million of foreclosed real estate (REO) that the Cantabrian bank had put on the market in the so-called Frankel transaction.

The bank has remained in the market as one of the most active and recurrent operators in this type of sale, closing deals with investors such as Fortress, PRA Iberia, Cerberus and Axactor, among others.

In recent months, it has completed the sale of around EUR 330 million in unsecured loans and other secured financing operations in the Swing project; the sale to Fortress of the Churchill portfolio, with a gross nominal value of EUR 200 million; and the sale to Balbec Capital of the Newman portfolio, which in its case consisted of real estate assets, secured loans and a portfolio of unsecured loans from its subsidiary Santander Consumer Finance.

Original Story: El Economista Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Unicaja has completed another sale of non-performing assets. The bank has agreed to transfer a real estate exposure (REO) of around €100 million to GCBE Advanced Solutions, a Cerberus servicer, and the Luxembourg-based SRPO Fund. This is the Ulysses portfolio, which according to market sources consists mainly of residential assets with some commercial property.

The figure represents approximately 9.7% of the total volume of foreclosed assets (REOs) held by the institution on its balance sheet. This exposure stood at €1.030 billion gross at the end of September, down 35.5% from €1.597 billion twelve months earlier.

The Bank’s total exposure to non-performing assets amounted to €2.379 billion, as it includes a further €1.348 billion gross in doubtful loans, the balance of which fell by 22.4% year-on-year in September, contributing to a parallel fall in the NPL ratio from 3.4% to 2.8%.

9.7% of ‘brick’ loans

Unicaja, like most banks, has repeatedly resorted to these divestments in order to improve the quality of its balance sheet and transfer the management of non-performing assets to specialised companies.

Since 2015, it has divested more than €3.6 billion in portfolio sales of all types of problem assets. Between January and September last year alone, it made similar sales worth €267 million and realised €8.5 million in capital gains, thanks to the high provisions on such assets, according to its latest financial report.

Of this year’s sales, 43% were residential properties, 27% were land and 30% were tertiary assets and work in progress. These figures do not include the transaction formalised in December with GCBE and SRPO Fund (Spanish Residential Property Opportunities Fund).

At the beginning of the year, the Bank sold €200 million of property assets in the Minotauro project to the Luxembourg Telesto fund and the French Tikehau Capital fund. With Cerberus, it has completed various operations such as the Centauro project, a portfolio of 100 million in real estate assets agreed in 2023, after transferring a similar portfolio for 200 million to the fund and Deutsche Bank in 2022, or another portfolio of 1,000 million in bricks and NPL acquired by Cerberus with the Davidson Kempner fund in 2019.

Unicaja has accelerated the disposal of toxic assets after a strong provisioning effort, and today its NPL are well below 3.4% of the banking sector as a whole. It has a provisioning buffer that covers 69.8% of the total portfolio of non-performing assets, up from 66.2% in September 2023.

Both investors are consolidating their positions. GCBE Advanced Solutions is emerging as one of the major servicers, with more than €25 billion in assets under management, after completing several transactions last year, including the purchase of Zolva’s Spanish and Portuguese business and the acquisition of Hoist’s NPL macro portfolio, in the latter case together with Intrum.

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Abanca is removing new non-performing assets from its balance sheet. The bank will transfer around €140 million in two separate operations, including healthy loans that have suffered some incidence in the last year and other financing with defaults. On the one hand, the bank has sold €60 million in refinanced and restructured mortgages (reperforming in the jargon) to the American fund Balbec Capital. In Spain, the transaction is a continuation of the Xallas project, in which it transferred to the same fund a portfolio of similar assets with a total gross nominal value of almost €80 million.

In Portugal, it is also finalising the transfer of a further €78 million of unsecured NPL to Servdebt Capital Asset Management, an Iberian asset management and recovery company. This is the so-called Gaia project or operation.

Some twenty disposals

So far this year, the Bank has also completed the placement of a €60 million portfolio of unsecured NPL to Poland’s Kruk, in the Ezaro portfolio. In recent years it has completed around 20 similar sales to KKR, EOS Spain and the US fund CarVal Investors, among others.

Abanca has been particularly active in the reperforming credit segment, completing five transactions in just four years. This is an asset class that is becoming increasingly important in a market dominated by unsecured NPL, now that banks have moved on from the massive real estate outflow.

The portfolio transferred to Balbec comprises outstanding mortgages with private individuals secured on residential properties throughout Spain. It has been structured for sale by securitisation, with the bank retaining the management of the ‘healthy’ loans and transferring them to a servicer when they become non-performing.

The segregation of non-performing assets and their subsequent sale is part of the routine management of institutions to improve the quality of the balance sheet and to transfer debt collection to specialised companies, thus freeing up their teams from these functions.

In the case of Abanca, the clean-up of the balance sheet has gone hand in hand with the integration of other banks during its acquisition spree. The latest was Eurobic, which was completed last July. But since Banesco entered Spain in 2012 with the purchase of Banco Etcheverría and the acquisition of Novagalicia Banco (now Abanca), the group has added Popular Servicios Financieros, Deutsche Bank’s Portuguese operations, the Spanish operations of Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Novo Banco, Bankoa and Targobank.

At the end of September, its NPL ratio was limited to 2.6%, at 1,312 million, with provisions of 1,024.9 million and 78.1% of impaired assets. If Targobank and Eurobic are excluded, the ratio is even lower at 2.3%.

Its exposure to foreclosed assets is also very limited, at 433.13 million at the end of September, barely 0.2% of the group’s balance sheet and backed by provisions covering 63.3% of the risk.

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

The Bank of Spain has confirmed that non-performing loans (NPLs) fell by €291 million in a single month, bringing the total to €40.163 billion.

The NPL ratio of Spanish banks continued to fall in October to 3.41%, two tenths less than in September and almost two points lower than a year ago, when it stood at 3.60%, the lowest level since the end of 2008. In total, the volume of doubtful loans reached 40.163 billion euros, 291 million euros less than the previous month and a reduction of 2.226 billion compared with October 2023, according to provisional data published by the Bank of Spain.

The main reason for this decline is the renewed fall in NPLs – the aforementioned 291 million – which allowed the NPL ratio to fall despite the credit portfolio falling to 1.177 billion euros, compared with 1.179 billion euros at the end of September. However, the loan book increased by €1 billion year-on-year.

The supervisor also published the aggregate NPLs of banks, savings banks and cooperatives (rural banks) on the one hand and consumer finance companies on the other. The NPL ratio of banks, savings banks and cooperatives fell from 3.32% in September to 3.30% in October, also the lowest rate since December 2008, after the NPL balance fell by 309 million to 37.111 billion euros.

October’s NPL ratio of 3.30% is also lower than the 3.48% of the same month in 2008, after the NPL balance fell by €2.127 billion since then.

Financial institutions saw their NPL ratio rise to 6.68% in October, some 20 basis points higher than in September. Compared with October 2023, however, it fell by 25 basis points. In absolute terms, the volume of doubtful loans of this type of institution stood at EUR 2.880 billion at the end of October, 19 million more than in September. Compared with the same month of the previous year, the doubtful balance was 94 million euro lower.

Original Story: La Razón | Author: Javier de Antonio
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Alternative asset manager Balbec Capital LP has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to issue its first Spanish securitizations totaling about €800 million by bundling loans it bought in the country over the past few years, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The US fund has bought up performing loan portfolios from Spanish banks over the last three years and now is seeking to finance them in the bond market, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the process is private. Balbec would seek to repackage the mortgage loans it purchased into securities of varying risk and size, they said. 

Some of the loans Balbec has bought in recent years came from banks such as Banco Sabadell SA and private equity firm Lone Star Funds, the people added, noting not all loans it purchased will make it into the residential mortgage-backed securities. The fund is looking to tap the market twice with a pair of RMBS transactions, each one for about €400 million, some of the people said.

Talks are continuing and details of the deals, including size, may change, people said. Balbec is likely to come to market in 2025, the people said, noting the deals will likely be split between the first and the second quarters.

The transaction comes as Europe’s asset-backed securities market sees renewed interest, with the European Investment Bank preparing to pump in more money once long-awaited reforms take hold. At the same time, the European Commission has sounded out the industry about a range of measures to make it easier for banks to offload loans to third-party investors. 

European Securitization

The market for securitization in Europe has almost halved since its peak of approximately €2 trillion during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, declining to €1.2 trillion at the end of 2023, according to a Commission document. That’s just a fraction of the size of the US market, which hit €13.7 trillion in 2021. 

Balbec has tapped the European market before, having issued an Irish RMBS backed by almost €700 million of non-performing mortgage loans in the country, according to a 2022 S&P Global Ratings report. In the US, the fund has been very active this year, with its latest RMBS transaction pricing in late November. Balbec has issued about 20 residential mortgage deals in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Spanish banks have been busy selling re-performing loans in recent years. These credits are usually included in the so-called Stage 2 European Central Bank classification, which means lenders must keep higher provisions for them. CaixaBank SA is in talks to sell a €500 million portfolio of these kinds of loans to Morgan Stanley and AB Carval Investors LP, Bloomberg reported.

Balbec manages more than $7 billion and has been active in the Spanish and Portuguese markets. Earlier this year, it bought a portfolio worth over €4 billion of soured Portuguese loans from Luxembourg-based LX Partners. And in 2023, Balbec secured roughly $465 million in commitments for its sixth flagship fund, which plans to invest in consumer, residential and commercial loan portfolios.

Original Story: Bloomberg | Author: Jorge Zuloaga and Carmen Arroyo
Edition: Prime Yield

Santander has once again entered into an agreement with the Fortress Investment Group to divest itself of non-performing assets (NPL). The bank has placed around €330 million of unsecured loans and other financing operations with collateral in the so-called Swing project, according to market sources. The bank declined to comment.

This is the second transaction it has closed with Fortress in just a few months. At the beginning of the year it awarded the Churchill portfolio, with a gross nominal value of €200 million, while transferring the Newman portfolio to Balbec Capital, which in turn comprises real estate assets, secured loans and a portfolio of unsecured loans from Santander Consumer Finance.

With the Swing transaction now closed, Santander has disposed of more than €2,500 million of non-performing loans in gross volume in just over a year. The Bank also reorganised its contracts and positions with various servicers.

Original Story: Cinco Dias |Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

The English courts ruled that the fund will have to pay this amount, plus 48 million in interest, for a transaction in the midst of the toxic ‘brick’ drain after the 2008 crisis.

The giant Cerberus will have to pay more than €400 million to Banco Sabadell for the sale of several portfolios of toxic assets in 2019. The English courts have ordered the US fund to pay €358 million for the operation, in addition to €48 million for interest and the costs of the process, the resolution of which was announced on December 3^rd..

The origin of this process lies in the drainage of toxic brick that Spanish entities carried out after the real estate bubble of 2008. Specifically, in 2018, Sabadell opened a bidding process to sell several portfolios -Challenger, Coliseum and Rex- with a gross value of around €6,414 million.

The properties were awarded and transferred to Cerberus in 2019 in exchange for a consideration of around €3.5 billion, although it was agreed to defer up to 21% of the amount (around €600 million) over time. Some of the properties included in the portfolios were not registered in the property register because they were in the process of repossession or undergoing auction.

The institution chaired by Josep Oliu had a period of three years, until the end of 2022, to resolve this situation, although it was brought forward in the case of the assets grouped in the Coliseum portfolio. Cerberus paid the deferred payment associated with it, between 170 and 180 million, so that the amount still pending payment fell to around €400 million.

Subsequently, Banco Sabadell complied with the registrations in Challenger and Rex on a package of properties valued at 365 million (91.25% of the total) and this is where the conflict began. The fund refused to pay the total of the remainder, claiming that it had not registered all the assets and therefore did not have to pay anything. The entity sued Cerberus in January 2023 in the High Court of Justice in England; the trial took place in early November, and now the judgement has been handed down.

The court decision, which comes in the midst of BBVA’s takeover bid, will have a positive impact for Sabadell in terms of reducing NPLs (non-performing loans), reducing provisions and increasing coverage, which will translate into an improvement in asset quality and the bank’s risk profile, the impact of which will be reflected in the accounts and balance sheet for the fourth quarter of the year.

Original Story: El Mundo | Author: Maria Hernandéz
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

The rate of non-performing loans (NPL) fell slightly in September from 3.44% to 3.43% in the midst of a slowdown in financing costs and brings the balance of NPL to over 40.4 billion.

One of the main achievements of Spanish banks after the rise in interest rates has been to keep the NPL ratio at historically low levels. The favourable evolution of the economy and the resilience of the labour market have contributed to this downward trend, pushing the NPL ratio down to its lowest levels ever. According to the latest data published by the Bank of Spain (BdE), the default rate closed September at 3.43%, slightly lower than the 3.44% recorded the previous month.

It is again close to the 3.42% it reached in June, coinciding with the first cut in the price of money implemented by the European Central Bank (ECB). In year-on-year comparison, the rate contracted by a little more than one tenth of a percentage point from 3.56%, which translates into 1,627 million less doubtful loans, down to 40,454 million. The slowdown in the Euribor has contributed to this trend and gives mortgage holders some respite. It should be recalled that the benchmark index of the mortgage market in Spain closed the ninth month of the year below 3%, something that had not happened since the end of 2022.

The organisation differentiates between the aggregate delinquency of banks, savings banks and cooperatives and that of consumer finance companies. In this regard, the former ended September at 3.32% and fell in the same proportion as the overall figure, although the amount rose slightly by 19 million to 37,420 million. Compared to a year ago, it fell by one tenth of a point. At the same time, in the case of consumer loans, the rate fell by more than two tenths of a point to 2.48%, although the amount of defaults only fell by two million per month.

The vertical rise in the cost of financing more than two years ago alerted the banking sector to a possible upturn in NPL, which in the end has not occurred. The measures promoted by the government to help mortgagors in difficulty have also helped to contain this rate, which peaked last February at 3.62%. This behaviour is recorded in the midst of an upturn in the granting of loans, which has been rising in double digits throughout the year.

In fact, the demand for mortgage loans has just experienced its best September since 2009 with the granting of 4,885 million in financing for housing. In the same month fifteen years ago, loans of this type were granted for a value of 5,235 million. The difference with that time is that the bursting of the housing bubble had already begun to hit the economy and the cost of financing hovered around the barrier of 1%, while at the end of the third quarter it stood at 3.5%, 0.25% higher than it oscillates at the present time.

Looking ahead to the final stretch of the year, the sector expects to remain at these levels in a context marked by the activation of the countercyclical buffer of 0.5% in a scenario of ‘moderate risks’, which will apply from October 2025. Subsequently, and depending on systemic risks remaining at standard levels, the percentage may be increased by another half a percentage point at the end of next year to be applicable twelve months later.

Original Story: La Información Económica | Author: Carmen Muñoz
Edition and translation: Prime Yield

Axactor ASA (Axactor) entered into an accretive €83 million sale of NPL portfolios in Spain. In parallel, the company announces an anticipated negative revaluation of the remaining portfolios for the fourth quarter 2024.

Axactor has entered into a binding agreement to sell NPL portfolios for a total of €83 million, representing a 2% premium over book value. The transaction represents approximately 6% of Axactor’s total NPL portfolio and the proceeds from the transaction will be used to reduce debt. The positive impact on cash metrics, such as cash EBITDA, is significant, supporting covenant compliance for at least the next four quarters.

“We believe this transaction demonstrates Axactor’s commitment to enhancing financial stability while navigating challenging market conditions. This strategic sale not only supports covenant compliance but also provides flexibility to manage our portfolios proactively,” says CEO Johnny Tsolis.

Additionally, as part of the routine quarterly NPL revaluation process, Axactor has booked a net negative NPV of changes in collection forecasts of €12 million so far in the fourth quarter, and October collections ended €3 million below forecasts (corresponding to a collection performance of 90%). Further meaningful negative revaluations are anticipated before quarter-end, and will be published as part of the fourth quarter 2024 report. The revaluations do not have any cash impact, and as such do not impact neither the interest coverage nor the leverage ratio covenants. There is sufficient headroom under the loan-to-value covenants to remain compliant also after the anticipated revaluations.

Together, these actions provide the company with a strengthened covenant position, further reinforcing the balance sheet.

Original Story: Axactor ASA
Edition: Prime Yield

Banco Santander is releasing more unproductive assets from an old acquaintance. The bank has sold unsecured re-performing loans (RPL) to individuals and SMEs to US fund Balbec Capital for a total of around 90 million euros, market sources told elEconomista.es.

The structure of the sale is unique, as the company will continue to service the current loans, along with other mechanisms to avoid any reputational risk with clients and is linked to an agreement that guarantees the fund the future purchase of the loans that may go unpaid.

“Re-performing debt consists of healthy financings that have been restructured or defaulted in the last year and has become an asset that is increasingly important in the portfolio sales market.

Despite the fact that they are current, the fact that they have suffered payment incidents or have been restructured implies a consumption of provisions for the banks, which see an incentive to transfer the risk in the possibility of reducing this burden, although they usually retain their management due to the link with the client. In fact, many transactions are carried out through securitisation, which allows the risk to be deconsolidated while maintaining this link.

Santander relied on Alantra for the operation now being completed, a consultant it has also used this year to carry out the Turf and Frankel projects, and in previous years for the sale of the Model and Titan projects, among others.

Original Story: El Economista | Author: Eva Contreras
Edition and translation: Prime Yield