National will apply to join Hercules
National Bank of Greece is expected to apply next month to join the Hercules asset protection scheme, in the context of the securitization of its Frontier portfolio worth some 6.3 billion euros. This will make it the fourth lender to join the scheme, completing the sum of collateral approved to date in the context of the mechanism.
Sources say the NBG management has completed the presentation of its portfolio to the agencies that will undertake the rating of Frontier, which mainly consists of loans secured against real estate. The portfolio is made up of 200,000 loans held by 90,000 debtors.
NBG is the only one of the four systemic banks that is not combining the securitization with the “hive-down” model of separating its banking activities and the “carve-out” model of transferring staff to a separate, independent company, as Piraeus and Eurobank have already done, and Alpha Bank is set to.
NBG’s portfolio of nonperforming exposures mainly consists of mortgages, which according to first-half data add up to €6.1 billion. National has already sold three other loan portfolios.
