JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are two of the banks among the final candidates that bid for parts of $9.65 billion in
U.S. property loans owned by Anglo Irish Bank, Bloomberg News
reported. The lenders are interested in acquiring pieces of the $4.52
billion of performing loans. Investor groups led by private-equity
firms Blackstone Group, together with Deutsche Bank, and Lone
Star Funds also submitted offers for parts of the portfolio, which
includes $5.13 billion of subperforming and non-performing debt,
according to Bloomberg News. Anglo Irish aims to sell off its loans after it was seized by the Irish government in January 2009 during a surge in souring debt. [more]

Banks and private equity firms are eagerly throwing their hats in the ring for the approximately $9.5 billion U.S. real estate portfolio on offer from Anglo Irish Bank, the Wall Street Journal reported. The largest single commercial property loan sale since the start of the recession, complete with a number of troubled loans, the portfolio has attracted much attention from investors in distressed property.
By the deadline yesterday, the Blackstone Group, Lone Star Funds, LNR Property, TPG Capital, Colony Capital, Area Property Partners, Starwood Capital Group, Five Mile Capital Partners and the CIM Group had all submitted or were intending to sumbit bids for at least some portion of the portfolio, sources said. The portfolio has also attracted the interest of banks, including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, given that there are three portfolios of loans that are performing and expected to mostly stay that way through maturity, the Journal said. [more]

An investment group headed by Starwood Capital Group beat out the Related Companies, Lone Star Funds and Colony Capital to win a 40 percent stake in a company created by bank regulators to contain the assets of Corus Bank. The bank was seized last month by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and has a $4.5 billion loan portfolio that includes many failed South Florida condominium projects. The winning consortium includes TPG Capital (formerly Texas Pacific Group), Perry Capital and WLR LeFrak, a venture that involves investor Wilbur Ross and real estate company the LeFrak Organization. The winning bidder got the assets for a roughly 40 percent discount in a cash and debt deal.