According to a recent report published by Cushman & Wakefield’s (C&W), 2014 was a massive year for the non-performing loan (NPL) market with the execution of a record €80.6bn of European commercial real estate and real estate owned transactions. Placing this figure into context, the C&W report stated that this “represented growth of 156% on the volume for 2013 with an increase of over €26bn on the totals for 2012 and 2013 combined”. Looking ahead for 2015, C&W predict that closed transaction volume in 2015 will be in the region of €60-70bn with Italy anticipated to be the next NPL “hot spot”.
The rationale for the spotlight being focussed on Italy stems from the ECB’s announcement in October of their Asset Quality Review (AQR). The results revealed that four of the eight banks that were deemed to have capital shortfalls were Italian and €9.7bn of a €24.6bn capital void (as of 31 December 2014), was attributable to participating Italian banks. Given the hugely successful de-leveraging auction process undertaken by many banks in the UK, Ireland and most recently Spain, it is unsurprising that many market observers anticipate that Italy will follow suit with their own form of auction process. Although going down such a tried and tested route is no doubt a compelling option for the Italian banks, given the huge success of their CMBS 2.0 market I wonder whether the Italian banks may in fact have another string to their bow.
Continue Reading Is CMBS the answer to Italian bank deleveraging woes?