By Jeannette Neumann
MADRID--Spain's "bad bank" said on Thursday that it had chosen
major investment firms Apollo Global Management LLC, TPG Capital
Management and Cerberus Capital Management LP to market and sell
about EUR41 billion ($50.48 billion) worth of property assets on
its behalf.
The coveted job will give the three U.S. firms commissions and
insight into Spain's recovering real-estate market. The bad bank,
known by its Spanish acronym Sareb, chose Spanish bank Banco de
Sabadell SA in November to manage assets worth about EUR7
billion.
Apollo, which bought Banco Santander SA's real-estate service in
January, will manage 44,089 real-estate assets worth about EUR14
billion over seven years, the bad bank said. Apollo's portfolio
includes real-estate assets that were transferred to Sareb by banks
including bailed out lender Catalunya Banca SA.
Sareb selected Haya Real Estate SA, owned by Cerberus, to market
and sell 52,168 property loans worth about EUR18 billion over the
next five years. Those loans were originated by Bankia SA, Spain's
largest bailed out lender.
TPG, which owns 51% of a servicer previously held by Spanish
lender Caixabank SA, has been selected to manage 30,342 properties
and real-estate loans worth EUR9.2 billion over seven years. TPG's
portfolio includes real-estate assets that had been on the books of
banks including bailed out lender NCG Banco SA.
Sareb was created in November 2012 as a depository for the most
troubled Spanish banks to unload EUR51 billion of risky real-estate
loans, residential foreclosures, unfinished commercial properties
and undeveloped pieces of land.
Nine Spanish lenders transferred nearly 200,000 real-estate
related assets to the bad bank. Since then, these banks have also
been marketing and selling properties and loans on behalf of the
bad bank.
The three investment funds and Sabadell will take over the
management of those properties from those banks on Jan. 1--a change
aimed at diminishing perceived conflicts of interest. The banks
that have been managing Sareb's assets are also trying to unload
their own real-estate assets that weren't transferred to the bad
bank.
The value of the properties and loans to be managed by the three
funds and Sabadell is based on the value of those assets when they
were transferred to Sareb, meaning their value could have
changed.
Access Investor Kit for Bankia SA
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=ES0113307021
Access Investor Kit for Banco de Sabadell SA
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=ES0113860A34
Access Investor Kit for Banco Santander SA
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=ES0113900J37
Access Investor Kit for Banco Santander SA
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US05964H1059
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
