Greece’s largest lender Piraeus Bank has shortlisted Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, Davidson Kempner Capital Management, and Kildare Partners for the second round of bidding for its €1.5 bn Project Amoeba non-performing loan portfolio, PropertyEU has learned.
Other US asset managers and private equity investors including Fortress Investment Group and Lone Star Funds are believed not to have made it to the next round, which is expected to start in the third week of March.
The disposal – Greece’s first major property-backed sale by a local bank – involves 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 is 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.
Piraeus Bank is said to be seeking offers above €160 mln for the package, according to people familiar with the sale, which is being managed by UBS. PropertyEU's sister publication EuroProperty first reported in September last year that Piraeus was preparing the disposal, which is due to close by the second quarter.
If successful, the sale is expected to unleash a number of similar disposals by the Greek banks, which are saddled with some €100 bn of NPLs and are under growing regulatory pressure to tackle their bad debt problem.
Greece’s banks have been struggling to sell assets largely due to legal hurdles and the reluctance of the courts to take action under public pressure.
In late 2017 Eurobank launched the country’s first major sale of bad unsecured loans, divesting a consumer loan portfolio with a face value of €1.5 bn.
Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank and the National Bank followed suit, shedding similar consumer loan portfolios and recovering an average of 3 cents on the dollar for each package.
