Lone Star has won the bidding for a €200m portfolio of non-performing loans being sold off by Société Générale.
The private equity firm, which specialises in distressed debt and commercial real estate, is understood to have bought the French bank’s loan portfolio for a discount of about 30% at a price of about €116m. Macquarie Bank is understood to have financed the deal.
Blackstone and Deutsche Bank are also thought to have made bids for the portfolio, which comprises predominantly French and German loans and was originally valued at €500m before it was scaled back earlier this year.
The deal would mark Lone Star’s third acquisition of a European distressed loan portfolio since December.
It won one of the most competitive loan sale auctions carried out last year when it beat rival Cerberus to take control of the £900m Project Royal book from Lloyds Banking Group. Lone Star has also bought part of the Bundesbank Excalibur portfolio and is taking on more of that pool.
SocGen and Lone Star declined to comment.
In February, SocGen extended the deadline for second-round bids for the loan portfolio by three weeks, thought to be due to some assets in the portfolio being bid on separately outside the process.
