Blackstone buys €237m portfolio of loans from Sareb

US private equity firm Blackstone has acquired a loan portfolio with a nominal value of €237 mln from Spanish bad bank Sareb for an undisclosed amount.

The sale of the so-called 'Aneto' portfolio brings the total disposal volume carried out by Sareb in the past few weeks to over €1 bn.

The portfolio acquired by Blackstone comprises 39 non-performing loans secured against 29 residential projects and land sites across Spain, and largely located in or near Valencia, Madrid and the Galicia region.

'These sales demonstrate the dynamism of the company's business and the strong appetite in the market for these assets,' commented Sareb's CEO Jaime Echegoyen.

The acquisition comes hot on the heels of Blackstone's purchase last month of the Corona portfolio, comprising four office buildings in Madrid totalling more than 40,000 m2 of office space for more than €81 mln. The properties, sold by Sareb, are all located in the northern area of Madrid and let with an average occupancy rate of more than 90%.

In December Sareb divested a total of four commercial real estate-backed loan portfolios and one office package to a mix of private equity funds and institutional investors with a combined face value of €847 mln.

In the largest of the deals, UK-based alternative lender Hayfin Capital Management acquired one of two Agatha sub-portfolios comprising 38 performing loans with a par value of €194 mln and secured by 29 rented apartment blocks primarily located in Madrid.

In a separate transaction, Hayfin also bought the Olivia portfolio of seven performing loans with a face value of €140 mln. The loans are securitised against residential and commercial assets in the Valencia region. Irea and law firm Hernández-Echevarría advised Sareb on the deal.

In addition, Sareb has sold the second Agatha sub-pool consisting of 10 housing developments in Madrid with a par value of €65 mln to D.E. Shaw. Irea and law firm Ashurst advised Sareb on the deal.

Separately, Cerberus Capital Management won the €133 mln nominally-valued Project Meridian, which is secured by 26 hotel sector properties in Spain comprising more than 2,700 income-producing rooms.

The hotels are spread across six Spanish regions with the largest number of properties in the provinces of Valencia, Barcelona, Alicante, Almeria and Cadiz. Irea acted as financial advisor and Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira acted as legal adviser on the sale of this portfolio.

Finally, Sareb also said that it is in the process of divesting the Kaplan package of performing and non-performing loans linked to small and medium-sized developers with a nominal value of €234 mln. A majority of the assets is backed by land and residential properties, the bank said.