Portugal’s Novo Banco will maintain the efforts towards the reduction of its nonperforming loans (NPL) stockpile along this year, preparing to launch soon the bidding process for another two bad debt portfolios: the projects “Nata 2” and “Viriato 2”.

«Yes, our aim is to close more NPL sales this year», said Novo Banco President, António Ramalho, during the bank’s annual results presentation.

These portfolios arrive into the market a pair of months after the sales completion of projects “Nata” and “Viriato”, which took place in the end of 2018. The larger NPL portfolio to be sold in Portugal ever, Project Nata was divided into two tranches: one with a gross book value of €500 million and other, larger, of €1.2 billion. Besides this, in the same period, the Portuguese bank have also sold its Project Viriato, involving more than 9,000 real estate owned (REO) assets.

Considering the «success» of these «toxic assets» sales, António Ramalho announced that «Yes, we will have the Nata 2 and the Viriato 2», ensuring that this will be another year for the bad debt shrinking.

«We have to do a very clear and precise NPL plan and deliver it to ECB. Its part of our programme», explained the president of the bank which was bought by US’s Lone Star in 2017 after former Banco Espírito Santo collapse in 2014. The goal, stresses António Ramalho, is that «the bank’s NPL ratio reach 5%», in line with ECB’s targets. As for the «bad bank» in which remains the burden legacy of Banco Espírito Santo, the NPL ratio should stand «close to 12%».

As revealed in the same occasion, Novo Bank recorded losses of €1.412 billion in 2018.

Original Story:Jornal de Negócios | Rita Atalaia
Photo:  Novo Banco
Translation and Edition: Prime Yield