Three groups of international investors submitted their non binding offers to financial advisor Ubs for Unicredit Credit Management Bank (Uccmb), il Sole 24 Ore wrote. They come from Fortress-Prelios, Cerberus-Jupiter (a Cerved Group company) and Goldman Sachs-Deutsche Bank-Tpg.
The first two offers come from groups made by a specialized player (Prelios and Jupiter) and a private equity operator specialized in distressed asset (Fortress and Cerberus, the latter having bought from Unicredit a 950 million euros portfolio of consumer credit e personal non performing loans in December 2013). The third offer comes instead from a group made of a private equity operator and two investment banks, all with a specific experience in distressed assets. Other offers however might come from other specialized private equity operators such as Blackstone, Apollo, Lone Star or Marathon.
Uccmb is the leading platform in Italy for collection of receivables. It deals non only with non performing loans, but is also a special servicer for securitization deals and on bonis credit management. Uccmb manages a portfolio of 40 billion euros of non performing loans, i.e. almost a 32 pct stake of the whole Italian market.
A note by Unicredit last March, the same illustrating 2013 financial results and the Strategic Plan 2013-18, said that “as part of its active portfolio management, Unicredit will list on the market Fineco to further accelerate its growth. In parallel, it will explore the potential disposal of UniCredit Credit Management Bank (UCCMB), the largest collections platform in Italy, to a specialized player”.
It is not clear yet if the sale will deal with the whole bank of it will be split in two steps: the non performing loans portfolio and the special servicer activity and credit management activity.
