BBVA Wins Auction For Nationalized Spanish Bank Unnim
March 07 2012 - 12:56PM
Dow Jones News
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA) on Wednesday agreed to
take over nationalized Spanish lender Unnim in the first of several
assisted banking deals planned this year by the country's central
bank.
The Bank of Spain said in a statement that the Spanish deposit
insurance fund will assume losses at Unnim of EUR953 million ahead
of the transfer of ownership to BBVA, Spain's second-biggest bank
by assets.
BBVA will purchase Unnim for EUR1.
Unnim, the result of a merger in 2010 of three small savings
banks into a EUR30 billion lender, was taken over in September last
year by the central bank after it failed to meet new, higher
minimum-capital requirements. Like many of their peers, the three
Catalonia-based savings banks had lent aggressively to real-estate
developers through the country's building boom, a strategy that
backfired when the bubble burst four years ago.
As part of the deal, the deposit insurance fund will assume 80%
of any future losses on a portfolio of assets on Unnim's balance
sheet.
BBVA beat out mid-sized lender Banco Popular Espanol SA
(POP.MC), savings bank Ibercaja and Banco Santander SA (STD) in the
auction.
All four banks had filed binding offers for Unnim last
month.
-By Christopher Bjork, Dow Jones Newswires; +34 91395 8123;
christopher.bjork@dowjones.com
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