Alantra advises Alpha Bank on the sale of a €2.4bn Cypriot NPL portfolio to Cerberus

Feb 2022

Sell-side advisory

Value €2.4 billion

Athens – Alantra, the global investment banking and asset management specialist, is pleased to announce that it has advised Alpha Bank Group (“ the Group“) on the sale of a €2.4 billion Cypriot portfolio of non-performing loans and real estate properties (“Project Sky”) to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management L.P. (“Cerberus”). This transaction represents the largest NPL sale by a Greek Bank that does not use the Greek government guarantee scheme (HAPS) and is Alantra CPA’s 8th successful NPL project in Cyprus as Financial Advisor.

Alpha Bank Group is a leader in the Greek financial sector, offering a wide range of high-quality financial products and services in the domestic and international markets. The Group also has one of the highest capital adequacy ratios in Europe.

Founded in 1992, Cerberus is a global leader in alternative investing with approximately €50 billion in assets across complementary credit, private equity, and real estate platforms. In the segment of non-performing loans and non-performing loan portfolios, Cerberus is one of the largest and most experienced global investors. Its industry-leading NPL platform comprises 50 investment professionals carrying a strong track record during the last 25 years.

This transaction forms part of Alpha Bank’s strategy for the reduction of its stock of non-performing loans, culminating a series of similar successful transactions completed by the Group over the previous years. With project Sky, the Group further de-risks its balance sheet by reducing its non-performing exposures (NPE) ratio by an additional approximately five percentage points to c.13% (as of September 30, 2021 pro forma).

The impact on the Group’s income statement is fully in line with the allocated loss budget at c. Euro 0.2 billion with a commensurate impact on the Group’s Total Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAD) of c.20 bps (as of September 30, 2021 pro forma).

Completion of the transaction is expected to take place in Q3 2022, subject to the receipt of customary regulatory approvals.

Nicholas Colman, Managing Partner of Alantra commented: “We are very proud to continue to support the successful NPE deleveraging efforts of Alpha Bank. Institutionally for Alantra, Project Sky is our 6^th project advising Alpha Bank, as well as our 8^th project in Cyprus, which further demonstrates our credentials and capabilities as leading independent advisor of NPE transactions in Cyprus. “