According to information gathered by ECO, this transaction was closed in December. The portfolio has toxic assets belonging to Popular Portugal, and was sparking the interest of Apollo, Bain Capital and Arrow Global.
During the bank’s results presentation, CFO Manuel Preto explained that these buildings became Santander Totta’s property with the integration of Popular Portugal at the end of 2017: «we tried to quickly alienate these assets, because we believe the bank’s management should be focused on granting new credit to the economy and not managing portfolios which are already adequately provisioned and which do not add much to the bank’s results», quotes the same source.
The sale may have contrinuted in 50 million euro for the bank’s results last year.
