Greek lender Alpha Bank has received 10 non-binding offers for its €1 bn Project Jupiter non-performing loan portfolio, PropertyEU has learned.
According to well-informed market sources, the interested parties are the same as for the bigger Project Amoeba package which was sold to Bain Capital earlier this year for over 20% of the nominal value. The contenders are said to include a string of US asset managers and private equity investors such as Lone Star Funds, Apollo Global Management, Oaktree Capital, KKR, Fortress Investment Group and Bain Capital.
Non-binding offers for the portfolio were due on 16 July, with Alpha Bank planning to shortlist bidders by the end of this week. Closing of the deal is expected for the end of September.
PropertyEU reported in early May that the portfolio was about to hit the market in Greece’s second major property-backed loan sale by a local bank. Alpha Bank hired Morgan Stanley to divest the package which includes over a third of hotel properties in an attempt by the landlord to attract international investors. The portfolio is also believed to include a number of retail assets as well as hundreds of smaller commercial properties for various uses.
Greek banks are saddled with some €100 bn of NPLs and are under growing regulatory pressure to tackle their bad debt problem. Earlier this year Bain Capital emerged as the buyer of the Amoeba non-performing loan portfolio with an on-balance sheet gross asset value of €1.45 bn in Greece's first major property-backed sale by a local bank.
UBS was the exclusive financial advisor of Piraeus for the transaction, which involved a mixed bag of secured and unsecured loans with a face value of €1.5 bn, according to experts. The secured portion of the portfolio was backed by €467 mln worth of commercial, residential and industrial real estate across 1,350 largely vacant assets and is in addition to around €200 mln of unsecured loans, for a total representing 40% of the loans’ face value.
