The Npl market will break through the 100 billion euro barrier by the end of 2017. The shocking figure is that proposed by Banca Ifis' Market Watch on the occasion of the Npl Meeting, the annual appointment dedicated to non-performing loans and organized by the Venetian bank in Venice. “At first I didn't believe it either – he said the managing director of Ifis, Giovanni Bossi – . But then analyzing the data at our disposal, which are not all public, the figure is that. The peak is due to the so-called jumbo deals, such as those of Mps, Unicredit, the two former popular Veneto companies. In the end it could be 80-85 billion, but the 100 billion threshold is close, you can count on this".
Also because so far in the calendar year the NPLs taken over by the system are already worth 33,4 billion, through 36 transactions: the figure for the second quarter tripled that of the first, while in all of 2016 17,3 billion of non-performing loans had moved and in 2015 they were 19,1 billion. The total for 2017, according to the Ifis Market Watch, gives 104 billion, more than what was acquired in the entire 2012-2017 period, i.e. since Non Performing Loans became a hot topic. “It also seems to me an optimistic estimate – he commented the CEO of Banco Bpm, Giuseppe Castagna, present at the event – but it is indicative of the now full awareness that exists on this market”.
“Npls – continued Castagna – are an interesting, real business, which does not consist only in the sale and recovery of credit, but also in the organisation, among banks, of real Npl Units, corporate sectors that work from assets manager and this is giving great results. In fact, our recovery percentage is high, 50%, also thanks to management, which can be better than selling". Among other things, Banco Bpm has announced that is about to put a 2 billion euro NPL portfolio on the market and aims to sell another 3 billion of non-performing loans in 2018. On this latter operation, the bank intends to use the Gacs, the public guarantee on bank non-performing loans, and aims to implement it in the first part of next year. “We already have 40-50 potential bidders and hope to close by the end of the year,” Castagna said.
The CEO of the third largest bank in Italy, however, looks even further: "The business of NPLs must not, however, mask other problems of the banks, such as that of the business model: we must take advantage of the opportunities that the recovery gives us economic. The work on NPLs will take a very long time”. Giovanni Bossi is more optimistic about the times: “Years ago international operators looked with skepticism at the situation of Italian banks' non-performing loans. Years ago, at the worst moment of the crisis, there really was a risk that compromised credits would directly endanger the whole banking system: they were 200 billion gross, 90 billion net”. Now, however, the markets are looking at Italian banks with a different eye: "It is increased interest also from foreign funds – said Paolo Petrignani, CEO of Quaestio, the asset management company which took over a large part of the impaired loans of the good banks and MPS -, above all from the American ones: now there is more confidence”. “This is demonstrated by the fact – adds Bossi – that all or almost all the banks have recovered on the Stock Exchange compared to the lows. I lose balance: by the end of the year the newspapers will headline that the problem of non-performing loans has been solved".
