Spanish lender Banco Santander wants to sell a 51 percent stake in a staggering mortgage and property portfolio for $5.7 billion and identified the Blackstone Group, Apollo Global Management and Lone Star Funds as potential buyers.
The portfolio encompasses around $34 billion, but many of the loans are troubled, Bloomberg reported. Banco Santander took over the portfolio in June when it bought the struggling lender Banco Popular Espanol SA for the symbolic price of 1 Euro. E.U. regulators had previously warned that Banco Popular was “failing or likely to fail.”
Santander is also including a 51 percent stake in property management firm Aliseda, which it bought last week, as part of the offering.
Blackstone has been an active investor in European real estate in recent years. Last year, the fund manager agreed to pay $3.6 billion for the German property owner OfficeFirst. [Bloomberg] — Konrad Putzier