Lloyds Banking Group has launched its second Irish NPL in as many months by kicking off the €2bn (£1.6bn) Project Parasol process.
The bank has appointed Deloitte to market the book, which comprises 70% commercial loans, covering all asset classes. The balance is 30% residential.
The portfolio includes 1,800 borrower connections and around 3,200 underlying properties. At least 90% of the properties are located in the Irish republic; the remaining 10% are in the UK.
The portfolio is said to be “extremely granular” as Lloyds gets to the end of its Irish exposure. The value of the largest asset is thought to be around £8m, and a large swathe of properties averages around £200,000.
This will narrow the pool of potential bidders down to the “volume players” such as Lone Star, Cerberus, Deutsche Bank and Apollo as other investors concentrate on larger-ticket assets sales in Europe.
Deloitte is understood to be approaching 15 to 20 potential buyers with the deal ahead of first-round indicative bids expected on 13 October.
The process comes one month after Lloyds launched the sale of the €1.1bn Project Paris NPL, which ties up the last of the banks’ expected Irish residential loan deleveraging.
First-round bids for Project Paris have already been received with up to four bidders moving through to a second round.
The market is also expecting Danske Bank to launch an Irish loan sale process in the coming months as the Copenhagen-based institution aims to complete its Irish deleveraging by year end.
Danske entered the Irish market in 2005 when it bought National Irish Bank in the Republic and Northern Bank in Northern Ireland.
It announced in October last year that it was pulling out of the Irish market. This triggered an exit from its exposure, which included loans to around 5,000 residential properties, by the end of this year.
It has already offloaded around 680 buy-to-let mortgages in the €100m Project Circle sale to Deutsche Bank in May this year.
All parties declined to comment.
bridget.o’connell@estatesgazette.com
