Project Hercules

Nov 2014

Sell-side advisory – Secured NPL

Value €6.5 billion

After two failed attempts, the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB for its acronym in Spanish) engaged Alantra to sell Catalunya Banc.

Alantra’s Credit Portfolio Advisory (CPA) and Investment Banking teams designed an innovative structure with multilayered benefits to sell Catalunya Banc: The carve out of the residential loan portfolio exposure (Project Hercules) and the subsequent sale of the rest of the bank.

Project Hercules, one of the biggest mortgage portfolios in Europe at that time, had a face value of €6.5bn. The portfolio was segmented to take into account the delinquency status of the credits between performing loans (“PL”) (€2.5bn), subperforming loans (“SPL”) (€1.1bn) and non-performing loans (“NPL”) (€1.3bn).

The consortium formed by Blackstone, who offered €3.6bn, and FROB, who also participated with a c. €600mn offer, was selected as the final buyer of the portfolio.

For more information about the two parallel transactions, please visit “2014: Helping European banks get back on their feet” in History