Unicredit‘s ceo, Jean Pierre Mustier has received three potential bids for the notes that will be issued under the bank’s next maxi-securitization of about 20 billion euros of net non-performing loans whose senior tranches are going to be assisted by the Italian Government guarantee (Gacs), MF Milano Finanza writes today.
Cerberus, Pimco and Fortress are said to be the three bidders. It is not clear yet for which tranches they are bidding but it is reasonable to think that the bids will be for mezzanine and junior tranches. Among them, Fortress is said to be in a pole position as it already knows Unicredit’s Npl portfolio: Fortress bought Unicredit’s Npl managing platform, once Uccmb and now renamed doBank.
More details about the deal are expected to be revealed next December 13th in London by Mr. Mustier as he will announce Unicredit’s strategic plan and tell the market about the size of the long expected capital increase. Some analysts said it will be as much as 13 billion euros but this will depend on how much capital the bank will be able to cash in through its nexts sales, including its Npls portfolio and asset management group Pioneer (see here a previous post by BeBeez). As for the latter, Aberdeen’s ceo told the press a few days ago that he is no more on the deal as Pioneer’s valutations are running to high (see Ansa here).
Till now Unicredit has been selling Npls portfolios to single counterparts. The last sale was in October: 940 million euros of unsecured consumer loans and loans to SMEs were sold to Polish group, Kruk (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Including that deal, Unicredit sold a total of 12 billion euros of gross value in Npls starting in 2014.
