After a ten-days stop in talks, UniCredit and a consortium comprising US asset manager Fortress Investment Group and Italy’s Prelios seem to be close to a deal on Unicredit’s debt recovery unit UniCredit Credit Management Bank (Uccmb).
The deal should be valued 550 million euros of which about 300 millions for the managing platform and the remaining 250 millions for a 2.5 billion euros NPLs portfolio which is a smaller portfolio than the one originally identified (word was of a 4-5 billion euro portfolio that was lowered to 3.4 billions in a first round and finally to 2.5 billions). The deal also regards a 10-year partnership with the buyer to manage its loans servicing business.
At the end of October the two counterparts entered in exclusive talks about a sale to Prelios-Fortress. However deadline for talks ended last November 11th without any agreement. In order to find a fast solution Unciredit came back asking a new offer from Lone Star, the US fund who has been excluded from the race when the Italian bank chose Prelios-Fortress.
Uccmb’s 2013 financial statements say that  “at the end of 2013 UniCredit CMB managed a bad loan portfolio with 850k positions for a total consideration of about 53 billion euros on a nominal basis. During 2013 new positions were rather high in value (about 102 new positions for a total of 4.5 billion euros) even if they were lowr than in 2012”. Uccmb counted 760 employees at the end of 2013 (downbload here financial statements for 2013).
Corporate Head Office should remain in Verona and head of Uccmb will be appointed Fortress’s managing director Carlo Spetka.
