Lloyds Bank has confirmed it is considering three final bidders for a €2bn (£1.5b) Irish commercial buy-to-let portfolio it is selling. The three global contenders are Californian-based Oaktree Capital Management, investment bank Goldman Sachs working with CarVal, and Kildare Partners.
The Project Parasol portfolio — which has 50 per cent of its loans secured on Dublin assets with the remainder spread across Ireland — includes thousands of buy-to-let properties alongside an equal number of smaller commercial properties.
The successful bidder for the mainly non-performing assets will be announced on 21 November, but all three players are no strangers to the Irish property market.
Oaktree manages in excess of $77bn (£47bn) worth of property primarily on behalf of pension funds, foundations, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds. It is already in partnership with the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and construction firm the Bennett Group to develop properties in Dublin’s the south docks.
Kildare is a private equity company that targets investments in distressed real estate, exclusively in western Europe. During the summer it paid €170m (£134m) for two of the biggest shopping centres in Northern Ireland. It is also working with Cork developer Michael O’Flynn on various projects.
And only last week Goldman acquired a €200m (£158m) loan portfolio secured on the Radisson Blu Hotel, at the capital’s Golden Lane, and the Radisson Blu Hotel at Dublin Airport. Its partner in the Project Parasol bid, CarVal, also succeeded with Goldman in acquiring various loans from the liquidators of the Anglo Irish Bank.
Lloyds is currently in the process of aggressively selling off its non-core assets. All the loans included in the latest portfolio were originally taken out by customers of the Bank of Scotland Ireland during the boom years before the brand was swallowed by Lloyds.
Earlier this month, Lloyds disposed of a €1.1bn (£871m) portfolio of 4,000 non-performing, Irish residential mortgages to US private equity firm Lone Star. Last year, Lloyds agreed to sell a portfolio of stressed Irish mortgages for €322m (£255) to Apollo Global Management.
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