Unicaja completes new divestments of unproductive assets. The entity has agreed transfer a real estate exposure of around €100 million to GCBE Advanced Solutions, servicer of Cerberus, and the Luxembourg vehicle Telesto Fund. It is about the Ulysses portfolio, made up mostly of residential assets and with some commercial properties, according to market sources.
The figure is equivalent to around 9.7% of the total volume of foreclosed assets (REOs) that keeps the entity in balance. This exhibition reached 1,030 million gross euros at the end of September last after having reduced it by 35.5% compared to the 1,597 million recorded just twelve months ago.
The bank’s total exposure in unproductive assets amounted to 2,379 million because it incorporates another 1,348 million gross euros in doubtful financing, the balance of which was reduced by 22.4% year-on-year in September and contributed to simultaneously lowering the non-performing loan ratio from 3.4 to 2.8%.
9.7% of the ‘brick’
Unicaja recurrently resorts to these divestments, like most banks, to improve the quality of the balance sheet and transfer the management of non-productive assets to specialist firms.
Since 2015, it has sold more than 3.6 billion euros in portfolio sales of all types of problematic assets. Only between January and September last year, it made similar divestments for 267 million and generated 8.5 million in capital gains thanks to the high provisions that supported said assets, according to its latest financial report.
43% of the year’s sales correspond to homes, 27% to land and 30% to assets in the tertiary sector and works in progress. These figures do not include the transaction carried out with Telesto and GCBE, formalized last December.
The bank repeats with both investors. At the beginning of the year he sold 200 million in real estate assets Minotaur Project to the Luxembourgish Telesto Fund and the French fund Tikehau Capital. With Cerberus he has closed different operations such as Centaur project, portfolio with an exposure of 100 million in real estate assets agreed in 2023, after in 2022 a similar portfolio for 200 million was transferred to the fund and Deutsche Bank, or in 2019 another of 1,000 million, with brick and problematic loans, which Cerberus acquired along with the Davidson Kempner fund.
Unicaja has accelerated the divestment of toxic assets after undertaking a strong effort in provisions and today places its non-performing loans well below 3.4% of the banking system as a whole. It has a provision piggy bank that covers 69.8% of the total portfolio of non-productive assets, higher than the 66.2% it did in September 2023.
For their part, both investors consolidate positions. GCBE Advanced Solutions is emerging as one of the servicers most relevant, with more than 25,000 million euros in assets under management after closing several transactions in the last year, including the purchase of the Spanish and Portuguese business of Zolva and of the macro portfolio of non-performing loans of Hoist acquired, in the latter case, together to Intrum.
956 million
Unicaja reduced exposure to non-productive assets by 956 million gross euros between September 2023 and last September. It represents a decrease of 28.64% after reducing the foreclosed portfolio by 567 million and doubtful loans by 389 million. At the same time, it was able to reduce provisions by 31.7% and still maintain one of the highest coverage rates in the sector: its provisions cover 69.8% of the damaged portfolio.
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