Banking and Credit Weekly Bulletin | 21 January 2022

RMBS – Tandem Bank acquires lender Oplo to reach £1.2bn of total assets (AltFi)

• Tandem Bank has received the regulatory approval to acquire consumer lender Oplo, bringing its total assets to £1.2bn and customer base to 171k
• Both firms are owned by Pollen Street Capital, a private equity and debt investor, which has been active in the fintech and alternative finance sectors
• The acquisition will expand Tandem’s product offering across different consumer lending products, ranging from first and second charge mortgages to home improvement loans, car finance and personal lending

RMBS – Belmont Green set initial price thoughts on UK RMBS Tower Bridge Funding 2022-1 (Debtwire)

• The joint lead managers of Tower Bridge Funding 2022-1 have set initial price thoughts (IPTs) on the first securitization of the year
• The triple-A rated notes have IPTs of roughly 80bps over Sonia, with a 3-year average life and 16.5% credit enhancement
• The B-rated notes have IPTs in the low-to-mid 100bps, the Cs in the mid-100bps and the Ds in the high 100bps-200bps region
• The pool has an average balance of £222k, an average indexed LTV of 65.6%, average seasoning of 27.1 months and an average interest rate of 3.93%

Banking – Revolut launches its banking operations in ten more European markets (The Paypers)

• Customers in Benelux, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Spain, and Sweden can now add deposit protection of up to €100k to their accounts
• Following the expansion, Revolut will operate as a bank in 28 countries
• Although Revolut operates as a bank across most of Europe, its accounts in countries like Ireland, Italy and the UK are only offered as e-money and do not qualify for deposit protection

ABS – Alpha Bank’s synthetic PE securitisation project Aurora has been completed with CRC, AnaCap and EBRD (alphaholdings)

• The portfolio corresponds to a total GBV of €1.9bn, comprising solely SME and corporate loans
• The transaction contributes to the decrease in the bank’s RWAs by €1.2bn
• The transaction meets both SRT and STS standards

ABS – Alpha Bank has completed the NPE securitisation project Cosmos with DK (alphaholdings)

• The transaction concerns the sale of the mezzanine and junior notes of the NPE portfolio, corresponding to a total GBV of €3.4bn

ABS – Alpha Bank has entered into a binding agreement with Hoist Finance AB in relation to a NPE securitisation, project Orbit (alphaholdings)

• The portfolio comprises unsecured retail NPLs with a total GBV of €1.3bn
• The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022
• The transaction contributes to further decrease the bank’s NPE level by 2.3%

ABS – Eurobank has announced the completion of project Mexico with doValue Group (eurobankholdings)

• The transaction concerns the sale of 95% of the mezzanine and junior notes of the NPE portfolio, corresponding to a total GBV of €3.2bn
• Following this transaction, the bank’s NPE level is expected to drop to 7.3%

ABS – Eurobank has completed the synthetic securitisation projects Wave I and Wave II (eurobank)

• Project Wave I concerns the synthetic securitisation of a PE SMEs and large corporate loans portfolio with a total GBV of €1bn to Magnetar Capital
• The Wave I transaction led to the decrease of the bank’s RWAs by €0.6bn
• Similar to project Wave I, Wave II is the synthetic securitisation of a PE SMEs and large corporate loans portfolio with a total GBV of €0.7bn
• Wave II is the first synthetic securitisation in Greece under the EGF and it contributed to the drop of the bank’s RWAs by €0.5bn

ABS – Greek systemic banks aim to lower their NPL ratios below 10% in 2022 (mononews)

• To achieve this goal, banks continue engaging in securitisations, synthetics and outright sales of their NPLs
• In 2021, €26.3bn NPLs were sold, with €20.9bn remaining
• Eurobank is the first bank to achieve the lowest NPL ratio at 7.3% as of September 2021
• Eurobank completed project Mexico in December, with a GBV of €3.2bn, which was integrated in HAPS II as well as the two synthetic securitisations Waive I and II, with a GBV €700m
• Piraeus Bank aims to close Sunrise III in Q1 2022, having closed Sunrise I and II, with total claims of €7bn and €2.7bn
• Alpha Bank signed the sale of the portfolio project Orbit with a GBV of €1.3bn and securitised project Cosmos with a GBV of €3.4bn, aiming to lower their NPE ratio to 2% by 2024
• NBG’s securitisation Frontier I with a GBV of €6.1bn and Frontier II with a GBV of €1bn has lowered their NPLs to €3.7bn

ABS – Intrum buys the remaining of the Earth portfolio from the secondary sale from CarVal (mononews)

• Intrum bought 60% of the portfolio from CarVal
• In 2018, when the portfolio was sold, the total claim outstanding was €5.2bn

ABS – NBG completes securitisation project Frontier with GBV €6bn (NBG)

• NBG retains 100% of the senior notes and 5% of mezzanine and junior notes
• 95% of the mezzanine and junior notes are sold to Bain Capital Credit, Fortress Investment Group and doValue Greece

ABS – Piraeus Bank submitted binding offers for the purchase of HSBC Greece (mononews)

• HSBC loan portfolio (corporate, shipping, retail) totals €3bn with deposits of €1.6bn
• HSBC owns 15 branches and employees 334 people

ABS – Piraeus Bank completes NPL securitisation project Sunrise II (Piraeus Bank)

• GBV of the portfolio corresponds to €2.7bn
• 44% of mezzanine notes is sold to Intrum and 7% of mezzanine notes is sold to Serengeti Opportunities Partners LP
• Piraeus Bank retains 100% of the senior notes and 5% of mezzanine notes

ABS – Piraeus Bank sells shipping NPE portfolio project Dory to Davidson Kempner (Piraeus Bank)

• The portfolio corresponds to a total GBV of €400m
• The price paid is 53% of the GBV
• The transaction reduces the bank’s NPE ratio from 16% to 15%

Servicing – Haya manages 6,400 REOs from Cerberus and Frob (El Economista)

• The contracts have been signed with Cerberus and the Frob, both with a face value of around €500m
• The first is a contract signed with the Cerberus fund, corresponding to the project Jaguar portfolio, and the second is a portfolio of 400 residential and tertiary assets owned by the Frob and originating from Bankia

Servicing – Santander recovers the management of Aliseda’s assets after agreeing with Blackstone (EjePrime)

• Santander has agreed with Blackstone to take back the management of the portfolio of real estate assets wholly owned by the bank and managed by Aliseda
• The servicer manages two large portfolios, one belonging to Santander with a gross value at source of €5bn, and Quasar’s €30bn portfolio of impaired assets from Banco Popular

Regulatory – The government has already prepared a legal amendment to nationalise Sareb (El Periodico)

• The amendment will be approved in the coming weeks and will be the first step before the state takes over the 54.1% stake held by private shareholders
• The government has rejected injecting new aid into the company as it seeks to minimise the cost of the bad bank for the public coffers

NPL – Spain has the third highest NPL level in Europe (BrainsRE)

• The NPL ratio of 4.5% is higher than the European average of 2.9%. Banks have offloaded real estate assets worth more than €7bn in 2021
• Spanish banks have disposed €155.921bn in real estate assets since the beginning of 2015

ABS – Amco, Intesa and Prelios securitise €50m UTP (Bebeez)

• Amco, Intesa Sanpaolo and Prelios sgr securitised an UTP portfolio for a total GBV of €50m. Illimity and Cordifin underwrote senior and junior notes, respectively, whereas Prelios acts as servicer and co-investor

Loan sales – Luigi Luzzatti S.C.p.A. finalises a pro-soluto disposal of secured UTP and NPL exposures (Creditvillage)

• Luigi Luzzatti finalises its first multi-originator pro-soluto disposal of single name UTP and NPL exposures
• The first tranche comprises NPL for a total GBV of €30m and a final disposal price of 48%, one of the highest among this type of transactions. The NBO phase is expected to be completed in January 2022

ABS – GACS securitisation finalised EoY 2021 (Credit village, Bebeez, Bebeez)

• Crédit Agricole Italia S.p.A., Crédit Agricole FriulAdria S.p.A. e Credito Valtellinese S.p.A. have finalised a NPL securitisation assisted by GACS guarantee for a total GBV of €1.8bn. Senior notes, rated BBB, account for 86% of the portfolio price whereas mezzanine and junior notes account for the residual 14%. The operation was the largest ever completed by the bank in its de-risking activity
• Cassa Credit Solution (CCS), a Cassa Centrale Group entity, has finalised its second multi-originator NPL securitisation assisted by GACS guarantee. Specifically, 29 BCC, rural banks and 9 banks disposed around 9k credit lines for a total amount of €580m. The securitised portfolio GBV includes 54% secured exposures, 40% unsecured exposures, and 6% secured junior exposures. Exposures were mainly held by corporate (73% of GBV) and retail debtors. Prelios Credit Servicing has been appointed as master and special servicer
• Luigi Luzzatti S.p.A., a firm that incorporates 19 cooperative banks, closed a multi-originator securitisation assisted by GACS guarantee, concerning NPL exposures from 12 banks for a total GBV of €789.2m. Banca Popolare di Sondrio disposed NPLs for an amount equal to €420.9m, of which 57% are secured exposures. The NPL portfolio composition comprises exposures secured by first lien mortgages (53.7% of GBV), and exposures secured by second lien mortgages or unsecured (46.3%). The SPV issued senior notes for €191m (24.1% of GBV), rated BBB, mezzanine notes for €25m, and junior notes for €10m. The operation included the presence of a Reoco to optimise the portfolio value

Loan Sales – Banco Montepio sells €253m NPL portfolio to LX Partners and BTLP (Banco Montepio)

• According to the bank, the total derecognition will have residual impact on the bank’s P&L but will contribute to a 1%-point decrease of Banco Montepio’s NPE ratio
• The portfolio comprises more than 10 thousand loans (on and off-balance sheet)

Loan Sales – Novobanco sells €164.4m single names portfolio to Deva Capital and AGG Capital Management (Novobanco)

• According to the bank, the portfolio’s (project Harvey) sale price totalled €52.3m
• The transaction is expected to represent a €162.6m reduction of NPLs in the bank’s balance sheet

Loan Sales – Novobanco sells €231.3m NPL portfolio to LX Partners and West Invest (Novobanco)

• The portfolio (Project Orion) comprises more than 12 thousand loans and, as of September 2021, its outstanding balance amounted to €231.3m
• According to the bank, the portfolio’s sale price totalled €64.7m
• The transaction is expected to represent a €168.1m reduction of NPLs in the bank’s balance sheet

Banking M&A – Brazil-based Banco Master acquires BNI Europe for an undisclosed amount (Jornal Económico)

• BNI Europa, previously owned by the Angolan bank BNI, had 2 previous failed sale attempts: (i) the sale to China-based KWG in 2019 and (ii) the sale to the Spain-based Altarius Capital in 2021
• The completion of the operation is still subject to the approval of Banco de Portugal and the European Central Bank

M&A – ALD proposed to acquire LeasePlan (aldautomotive)

• ALD signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the acquisition of LeasePlan from a pool of investment funds led by TDR Capital
• LeasePlan is a fleet management and mobility company with a fleet size of 1.8m vehicles

ABS – Dutch multi-originator BTL RMBS delivers initial price thoughts (Debtwire)

• The ~€288m triple A rated senior notes with a WAL of 3.52, 12.91% credit enhancement and a pre-set coupon of 85bps over 3ME arrived at high 72bps over 3ME, or a cash price above par of 100.458. ~€18.9m Bs, ~€10.7m Cs and ~€7.4m Ds priced at 110bps, 160bps and 220bps, respectively. The ~€3.3m Es priced with a spread of 380bps
• The ~€315.1m provisional portfolio comprises 1,076 loans with an average seasoning of four months, an average LTV of 72.46% and an average interest rate of 3.52%