Spanish bad bank Sareb puts €1b of assets on the market

Spain's bad bank Sareb will be marketing assets with a total face value of up to €1 bn over the next quarter, well-informed market sources told PropertyEU.

Just a few weeks after closing its third portfolio sale, Sareb is putting a new package of residential units dubbed Project Teide on the market. The assets are believed to be valued at around €150 mln.

Meanwhile, the Spanish bad bank is also preparing the sale of a €450 mln portfolio of six or seven office properties in Madrid, known as Project Corona. In addition, it is understood to be marketing its 35% stake in the Parque Corredor shopping centre in Torrejón de Ardoz near Madrid under the code name 'Project Runner'. The mall, comprising over 150 shops and valued at over €100 mln, is majority owned by the Alcampo hypermarket chain.

Sareb is stepping up the pace of disposals on the back of the successful closing of its earlier sales programmes. The lender has just finalised the sale of a package of syndicated loans with a €245 mln face value to a unit of US hedge fund Davidson Kempner Capital. The credit facilities, which have Inmobiliaria Colonial as borrower, were part of Sareb's 'Operation Bermuda' aimed at reducing the company's exposure to the Spanish listed property sector.

In early August, Sareb also completed the disposal of a 51% stake in a €100 mln housing package to HIG Capital’s Bayside Capital arm. The Bankia-repossessed portfolio, valued at €100 mln, included 939 housing units located in Valencia, Andalucía, Murcia, Canarias and Madrid.

The transaction, dubbed Project Bull, was structured as a new vehicle - a Fondo de Activos Bancarios (FAB) - which will operate as a joint venture between Sareb and HIG. FAB is a special low-tax vehicle introduced by the Spanish government in 2012 to encourage international institutional investors to buy Sareb's assets.

Sareb was set up in 2012 following the transfer of some €50 bn of toxic real estate assets owned by nine major local lenders. The new entity bought the bad assets - in large part loans backed by residential real estate - for an average discount of 55%, and financed the operation with treasury bonds.

So far, Sareb has sold over 1,800 housing units.