Wednesday 2 November 2016

Asset Sale: Honing in on non-performing loans

The global asset sale market continues to grow, and within that TDX Group is already an established player in valuation and brokerage services in the unsecured market within the UK, and both the secured and unsecured markets in Spain. As a business we’re expanding this reach into a more globally focussed and structured asset sale function spanning the wider Equifax network and territories.

At a global level one of the greatest challenges, and opportunities, in this space is how to deal with Non-Performing Loans (NPL). In Europe alone, the largest banks hold approximately €1.1 trillion* of NPLs according to recent KPMG analysis.

The NPL problem is now a global one, and what to do about it is challenging Governments across the developed world. In some key countries such as the UK, Ireland and Spain they created organisations dubbed “bad banks” (UKAR, NAMA and SAREB) to manage the problem, whilst Greece and Brazil have changed entire legislative systems to allow the sale of NPLs.

The major difficulty in most countries is the experience and market structure needed to be able to execute NPL sales in a successful manner. NPLs are somewhat of an anomaly in that market conditions are different in all geographies, but that there are also some core similarities which need to be understood locally in order to succeed. At TDX Group, we’ve been operating in this space for 12 years, and have successfully executed more than one thousand transactions with a value of over $20 billion, and this experience will stand us in good stead as we now focus our efforts on a global scale.

How developed is Italy?

With the UK and Spanish markets having already developed, the race is on to find the next market which has the volume and infrastructure to support new growth. Italy has dominated the headlines recently but this market has found it difficult to develop a successful servicing model. Now that the Atlante II fund has been created (the second attempt by the Italian Government to try and bring some liquidity to the market) will this allow the market to establish some of the parameters to function or just add to the issues in an already fragmented market?

The Economist ran with a headline of “Bargain Hunt” in August which suggests that this market may need some support. One of the key areas discussed at a recent summit hosted by Banca IFIS in Venice was that of the Italian legal system and it was claimed that solely by reforming this you can add single digit percentage points to the Italian gross domestic product.

One of the essentials when working with funds and servicers is ensuring that the collections curves are genuinely achievable and the challenge with any new market is the ability to create balance between expected value from the seller and realistic returns from the buyer. The challenge in Italy will be weighing up state backed entities and their returns versus true returns for an investor.

Into Europe or an American adventure?

There has been a lot of talk about other developing markets in Europe and while there are undoubted opportunities to be had in Central and Eastern Europe a number of the markets do not have the large scale volume needed to replicate the UK or Spain. At TDX Group, we’ve taken on projects in Poland and Russia this year and looked at transaction in Greece; where the new regulatory framework for NPLs and the creation of Law 4354/2015 has enabled financial services organisations to consider wider disposal of certain assets.

Finally, another developing market for consideration around NPLs is South America, where we are already actively managing projects in Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Chile. The breadth of opportunity that exists here is very significant as the basic market for NPLs already exists, so bringing in skills and expertise from more developed markets can make a huge difference. In addition, some of the main purchasers are already active in South America (such as PRA and Encore) and we’d expect their presence along with the investment funds to accelerate the expected market growth.

The asset sale market is evolving and we are likely to see a number of exciting developments over the next 12 months – so watch this space.


Nick Ollard is Director of Global Asset Sale Services at TDX Group
 
*https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2016/05/non-performing-loans-fs.html

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