Banking and Credit Bulletin | 11 October 2023

M&A – Aviva to buy AIG’s UK life insurance business for $563 million (Reuters)

M&A – Co-op Bank kicks off sale with early October bid deadline, sources say (Reuters)

M&A – Bluestone Group sells Irish motor finance operations to Close Brothers (Asset Finance International)

ECM – Curve adds £58m to its Series C (Altfi)

ABS – ThinCats secures c.£700m funding facility through British Business Bank programme (Altifi)

ABS – SME lender Fleximize raises £136m from Goldman Sachs and Citi (Altfi)

ABS – Perenna to offer 30-year mortgages after regulatory approval (FT)

Banking – Metro Bank sounds out rivals about buying part of its mortgage book (FT)

Reverse IPO – Redwood Bank to list in London via reverse takeover of R8 Capital Investments, plans acquisitions (Mergermarket)

ECM – UK neobank Perenna raises $52m funding round ahead of mortgages launch (Altfi)

ECM – Ex-Revolut lead raises $15m to clean up business payments with Apron (Altfi)

Banking – Coris Holding, First Atlantic Bank and IIBGroup Holdings are the investors selected by CGD to compete for its majority stake in Cape Verde’s Banco Comercial do Atlântico (BCA) (ECO)

Credit – Interest rates on new mortgage loans reaches 4.3%, the highest since April 2012 (ECO)

Loan sale – Kryalos finalises the acquisition of two UTP portfolios accounting for a total GBV of EUR 65m (Debtwire)

Loan sale – Next Generation Collection securitises a NPL portfolio with a GBV of €450m (BeBeez)

Housing – Housing construction in Amsterdam has fallen sharply, leading to a drop in the estimates of new houses in 2023 from 7,500 to 4,500 (fd.)

Credit – Mortgage origination has fallen sharply since the beginning of last year. According to the Land Registry, 100,000 fewer mortgages were taken out in the past six months than in the same period in 2022, following the increases in mortgage interest rates (fd.)

Regulatory – Dutch government to increase subsidies for housing construction by €50m to €300m to overcome stagnating housing projects (fd.)

Housing – One of the Netherlands’ largest housing investors, Heimstaden, to sell c.20% (2,500 units) of its housing stock over the next 2 years, citing hostile policies towards landlords as a driver for its decision (fd.)

Regulatory – BaFin places a partial ban on Payone GmbH due to heightened money laundry risk (BaFin)

Regulatory – ECB takes Wüstenrot Bausparkasse supervision over from BaFin as the institution hits €30bn balance sheet threshold with its home savings business (finanz-szene)

Regulatory – Moody’s flag key risks for the German banking sector as (i) rising deposit funding costs, having roughly quadrupled to an average of 1.6% already, and (ii) unpreparedness for a “serious adverse scenario”, following its recent stress testing (finanz-szene)