Banking and Credit Weekly Bulletin | 7 May 2021

ABS – First UK BTL securitisation by London Wall Capital Investments (Debtwire)

• London Wall Mortgage Capital Series Fleet 2020-21, London Wall Capital Investments’ first UK BTL securitisation enters the market
• One William Street is the investment manager and Citi the sole lead manager, which expects to price the deal by the 7th of May
• The portfolio size is £309.1m and includes 1,467 BTL mortgages originated by Fleet Mortgages since 2018, with average CLTV 71% and average interest rate 3.6%

Regulatory – The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) plan for a potential “strong and simple” framework for small UK banks (Debtwire, Discussion Paper)

• The bank of England has started a discussion regarding potential updates on the prudential regime for small banks that differs from the Basel and Capital Requirements Regulation current rules. Preliminary consultations are due to end on the 9th of July 2021
• The aim of the new potential framework is to reduce the complexity of prudential requirements while maintaining resilience and supporting growth of the involved firms
• Only small firms are involved for now, but there is an ambition to extend a new simpler framework to “larger, but still non-systemic domestic firms” in the long run

 Real Estate – Topshop Oxford Street store on sale for GBP 420m (Debtwire)

• The sale of the Topshop’s emblematic store has been launched with a guide price of £420m
• A local press report on the sale of the Grade II listed property disclosed a pre-pandemic valuation of the building at £500m
• Potential buyers are Great Portland Estates; Ramsbury (Stefan Persson’s investment vehicle), Norges (Norway’s sovereign wealth fund) and Pontegadea (owned by Armancio Ortega)

ABS – Morgan Stanley Markets Refinancing of Secured Notes (Debtwire)

• Morgan Stanley is currently marketing Primrose Residential 2021-1, a €887.2m refinancing of European Residential Loan Securitisation 2019-PL1 and Grand Canal Securities 1
• The underlying portfolio comprises of Irish performing and reperforming mortgage loans originated by Permanent TSB, Irish Nationwide Building Society and Springboard Mortgages

ABS – SOREC and illimity complete a €175m GBV NPL securitisation (Bebeez)

• illimity purchased the securitisation’s senior notes while SOREC purchased the junior notes
• SOREC will be special servicer for the securitisation

ABS  – AMCO will now be able to offer guarantees on synthetic securitisations of Stage 2 loans (AMCO)

Loan Sale – BCP launches the sale of €180m unsecured portfolio (Debtwire)

• Project Row exposure is split between loans to individuals (36%) and SMEs
• Non-binding offers deadline was on 28th of April, whilst binding offers are due on 21st of May

Real Estate – ECS selects DK, Oaktree and Bain/Cerberus consortium to present final bid on €1.4bn leisure asset portfolio (Debtwire)

• Portuguese private equity firm ECS is selling restructuring funds Fundo de Recuperação, Fundo de Recuperação de Turismo and FLIP
• The funds are composed of €1.4bn split between hotels and resorts, including insolvent and stalled projects
• The deal may still not be completed given investors presented offers below the seller’s expectation

Credit – Whitestar to manage €200m unsecured NPL portfolio (Jornal Económico)

• Whitestar announced it will manage a portfolio originally owned by Banco Santander (Project Guincho) that was sold to 400 Capital Management
• Previously, the portfolio was managed by Whitestar (individual secured), Hipoges (corporate secured) and Altamira (unsecured)

ABS – Attica Bank to proceed with the securitization of “Omega” Portfolio (Attica Bank)

• “Omega” includes the loans/credits of the existing securitization under the name “Artemis”, almost the entire portfolio of NPEs of Bank as at the end of 2020
• Attica Bank has concluded successive securitizations (starting from December 2016) of a total amount of approximately €3bn
• Following the approvals of the supervisory authority, the Bank’s non-performing exposures will amount to €8m, while NPE ratio will reach, on a pro-forma level less than 1%

Credit – Beka Finance launches a secured NPLs fund (El Confidencial)

• This fund will have a target volume of €50m, investing in mortgage loans for all RE classes (residential, commercial, logistics and offices)
• The fund has an investment horizon of 3 years and a legal life of 5 years, extendable in two successive periods of 1 year
• The strategy foresees a net IRR of between 7% and 8% and periodic interest distributions in the form of dividends or share buybacks

Real Estate – Persepolis raises two funds to invest €200m in hotels and housing for Build to Rent (Ejeprime)

• The REIT has raised two new funds to invest more than €200m in housing and hotels over the next two years in Madrid and Barcelona
• The fund has already acquired an office building in Madrid located in Fuente del Berro, with 6,485 sqm which will be converted into dwellings for Build to Rent
• Among the fund´s new investors, there is Wedgewood Investment, an Illinois investment bank that already holds a stake in one of the fund´s REIT

Real Estate – Aedas starts its first Build to Rent development in Barcelona (Ejeprime)

• The development is taking place in Plaza Europa, L´ Hospitalet del Llobregat and it´s expected to be delivered within two years to Lar-Primonial alliance
• The development will include 86 sustainable 2,3 and 4-bedroom homes with large terraces, 92 parking spaces and 51 storage rooms