Elliott, Bain, Cerved eye Eurobank loan service unit
Eurobank has received a nonbinding offer for its Financial Planning Services (FPS) unit from a consortium comprising US funds Elliott and Bain Capital and Italian credit manager Cerved, banking sources close to the process said.
FPS will be sold as part of a planned 7.5-billion-euro multi-asset securitization package by Eurobank, code-named Cairo.
“A rival suitor, US fund Pimco, is also looking into it,” one of the bankers, who declined to be named, said.
There was also a third potential buyer for the Cairo package, but the banker did not say who.
Eurobank, Greece’s third-largest lender, expects binding bids for the Cairo sale in July.
Eurobank’s nonperforming exposures (NPEs) dropped to 36.7 percent of its loan book in the first quarter, from 37 percent at the end of December, and management has said that cleaning up its balance sheet remained the bank’s top priority.
The bank has already received binding bids for another 2-billion-euro securitization of nonperforming mortgage loans, code-named Pillar.
Ratings agency DBRS has announced a provisional rating for the Pillar senior note, making it the first Greek NPE securitization with a public rating -BB (low).
Late last month Eurobank’s chief financial officer Harris Kokologiannis told analysts that six investor groups had expressed interest in these transactions with four submitting bids.
He did not provide names.
[Reuters]
