The information came from the report “NPL & REO in Spain: A steady target in Europe” about the NPL market in our country, carried out by Prime Yield, integrated since last December in Gloval, Spanish group dedicated to comprehensive appraisal, engineering and real estate consulting services.
According to data from Banco de España and the European Banking Authority (EBA), NPL stock in our country decreased 114.000 million euro between December 2013 and June 2018 until it reached 74.800 million euro, which represents a NPL rate for the Spanish banks of 4.2%.
For Nelson Rêgo, Managing Director at Prime Yield and in charge of business development at Gloval in the appraisal and real estate consulting services for investment funds area, «Spain remains one of the main destinations for global actors investing in European NPLs and REOs because, despite its more mature condition when compared to other Southern European markets, it still offers many opportunities».
The report from Prime Yield, also believes that the NPL and REO portfolio market from the banks in Spain was very active and dynamic in the last five years, since it offered more opportunities and bigger returns than any other market in Western Europe. If in 2017 the NPL and REO transactions reached 52.000 million euro (multiplying by five the values of 2016), in 2018 this amount practically doubled to reach 90.000 million euro. In this period, the average size of the portfolios also increased, moving from the bracket 400 to 800 million euro to 1.000 to 1.500 million euro.
Concerning the type of buyers, the market remains dominated by the so called vulture funds, like Lone Star Funds, TPG, Apollo, Blackstone, Bain Capital or Cerberus Capital Management, and the main sellers remain banks like Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank or Banco Sabadell.