Well that didn’t take long. The ink on the #Spailout is not dry yet (well technically there is no ink, because none of the actual details of the Spanish banking system rescue are even remotely known, and likely won’t be because when it comes to answering where the money comes from there simply is no answer) and we already have an answer to one of our questions. Continue reading
European financial institutions will unload up to $3 trillion in assets over the next 18 months, according to an estimate from Huw van Steenis, an analyst with Morgan Stanley.
This month a team of three bankers from the London office of the buyout giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts headed to Greece to examine a promising private company that cannot get Greek banks to provide credit for future growth. The Blackstone Group agreed to buy from the German financial giant Commerzbank $300 million in real estate loans that are backed by properties, including the Mondrian South Beach hotel in Florida and four Sofitel hotels in Chicago, Miami, Minneapolis and San Francisco.
Commerzbank is under pressure from regulators to raise 5.3 billion euros ($6.9 billion) in new capital by mid-2012. Google too saw an opportunity. It bought the Montevetro building in Dublin this year from Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency, which acquired it after a huge bank rescue by the Irish government.
“There is clearly a restructuring and shrinking of European financial institutions,” said Timothy J. Sloan, chief financial officer of Wells Fargo, which last month acquired $3.3 billion in real estate loans from a bank in Ireland. “And many of the assets they’re shedding are in the United States.” He added, “We’re keeping our eyes and ears open for the right situations.”
via Who is Profiting from the Greek Crisis | HPUB – Huffington Post Union of Bloggers.
