Auction for Banca Monte Paschi‘s platform that manages the Italian bank’s non-performing loans is starting soon. Advisor Mediobanca is actually said to send teasers to potential investors next week (see here Bloomberg).
The teasers will be sent to international private equity firms specialized in credit and Npls such Kkr, Blackstone, Apollo, Cerberus, Fortress and Lone Star.
Non-binding offers are expected by mid-August while the entire sale process is seen to end by the end of the year. As part of the deal, mps will sign an agreement with the platform acquiror in order to allow it to manage about 28 billion euros of Npl for a number of years.
The deal has been studied for some months by Mps’s ceo Fabrizio Viola, who said last April that “the bank already started a project to extract value from its credit recovery platform” and “we believe that we own a veryy important asset”.
The project was announced last February by Mr. Viola who said that the bank was looking for a partner with whom team up for managing its Npls portfolio. Mps’s Npl platform manages about 40 billion euros credits and employs about 700 people.
