Alantra advised Liberbank on a restructuring of their non-core exposure and parallel €500m rights issue

Jan 2017

Strategic advisory

Value €500 million

Alantra advised Spanish bank Liberbank in the design and execution of three different transactions with the aim of massively restructuring its Non-Performing Asset (NPAs) exposure.

The three transactions have been executed, almost in parallel, between July and November encompassing:

The sale of the REOs servicing platform, Mihabitants, to Cerberus which has resulted in a capital gain for the bank of €85m. The referred platform will play a critical role in accelerating the NPA wind down strategy;

The sale of a portfolio of foreclosed real estate assets of around €600m of gross value, with relevant exposure to land, which provides evidence of the executability of the referred accelerated wind down of NPAs; and finally The €500m rights issue which has allowed to significantly reinforce the coverage of NPAs and further accelerate NPA divestments. The capital raising was structured through a complex process implying a tail-swallow movement of a 20% stake from the former Cajas through an ABB (Accelerated Book Building). Demand was 2x the offer in the ABB and 8x the offer of the rights issue. Final pricing implied a multiple above 0.4x tangible book value.

In addition to the advisory to Bm in the merger process with Bankia announced in July of this year, this transaction further demonstrates Alantra’s capabilities, and global approach, to structure and execute very complex transactions for banks.