Sector developments and company hires

Piraeus preps third NPL ABS
Piraeus Financial Holdings has reached definitive agreements with Intrum and Serengeti Asset Management in connection with the sale of 49% and 2% respectively of the mezzanine and junior notes of the Sunrise I non-performing exposures portfolio. The portfolio consists of circa 205,000 retail and corporate loans, with a gross book value of €7.2bn, as at 30 September 2020. The implied valuation for the transaction, based on the nominal value of the senior notes and the sale price of the mezzanine and junior notes, corresponds to 34.5% of GBV.

Piraeus Bank has already filed an application for the inclusion of the Sunrise I senior notes in the Hellenic Asset Protection Scheme, relating to the provision of a government guarantee on the senior notes of around €2.45bn. The transaction will be classified as held for sale in 2Q21.

Piraeus Bank will retain 5% of the mezzanine and junior notes, as well as 100% of the senior notes of the Sunrise I securitisation. Conditional upon requisite supervisory and corporate approvals, Piraeus Financial Holdings is contemplating distributing part or the whole of the remainder of the instruments to its shareholders.

Together with the Phoenix and Vega NPE transactions that are also pending completion this quarter (SCI passim), the Piraeus NPE ratio will drop to about 23% from the reported 46% in March. Subject to the required approvals, the loans within the Sunrise I securitisation are expected to be derecognised from Piraeus Financial Holdings’ consolidated financial statements within 2H21.

The expected capital impact of the transaction stands at circa 2.7 percentage points over the December 2020 total capital ratio, taking the P&L effect and RWA relief into account. The transaction is part of Piraeus’ wider Sunrise transformation programme and underlines the progress the bank is making with its €19bn NPE clean-up plan, leading to a single-digit NPE ratio within less than 12 months.

UBS Europe and Alantra acted as arrangers and financial advisors to Piraeus on the transaction.

In other news…

CMBS loan-level data integrated
Moody’s Analytics has integrated CMBS loan-level data across its commercial real estate solutions. A dataset of approximately 170,000 properties and 130,000 loans is now available across the Moody’s Analytics REIS platform, CMM, and CMBS Data Feed. The Moody’s Analytics CMBS dataset aims to provide investors with visibility into long-term trends by covering more than 12 years of performance history of active CMBS deals covering US$828bn of outstanding debt, as well as 20 years of historical data on the US CMBS universe.

E-commerce ABL agreement signed
Apollo Global Management has committed to invest up to US$500m in senior secured credit facilities originated by Victory Park Capital (VPC). The new lending relationship will focus on asset-backed lending (ABL) to companies that aggregate third-party sellers on Amazon and other e-commerce sites.

VPC will pursue income generation and capital preservation through downside protected investments in businesses with strong management teams building modern, scaled consumer goods companies. The financing commitment marks Apollo’s entrance into growth lending and complements the firm’s broad coverage of credit origination, including credit strategies that span capital markets, real estate, fund and G&P finance solutions.

Structured credit fund spins out
Panagram Structured Asset Management, an Eldridge-backed RIA specialising in structured credit, has launched with approximately US$13.5bn in assets under management. Panagram is led by John Kim, former principal and head of structured products at Eldridge.

Kim and his team of investment professionals, who have worked together since 2014, invest across the capital structure in CLOs, ABS and commercial real estate. The firm is one of the largest CLO investors in the market, with approximately US$12bn in CLOs and more than 45 control positions currently managed.

Panagram manages assets in separately managed accounts, private funds and other investment structures.