Alpha Bank wraps up “Project Sky”

The completion of “Project Sky”, the largest sale of NPL portfolio ever carried out by a Greek bank and the second largest relevant transaction in Cyprus, is announced by the Alpha Bank Group.

Accelerating its progress towards fully addressing the legacy of the crisis, AlphaBank implemented Project Sky in just 6 months, ensuring high investment interest and price that exceeded the initial estimates of the Bank and independent appraisers, despite the complexity of the due to portfolio. Specifically, Project Sky’s portfolio consists of complex real estate projects with exposure, both to retail and wholesale borrowers, to all types of wholesale exposures, SMEs, retail banking and recovered real estate holders of Euro 200 million. of MEAs, the transaction allows the Bank to get rid of most of the REOs in the Cypriot market.

Portfolio consolidation in Cyprus, at a single-digit percentage by the Group in the first half of 2022

With the completion of Project Sky, the portfolio of Alpha Bank Cyprus is fully consolidated as the gross book value of NPE & REO is limited to less than Euro 80 million, thus freeing up resources and allowing the Bank, with a net balance sheet and limited costs, to focus on its core activities, supporting the Progress of the Cypriot economy and returning to a growth trajectory of its loan portfolio and high profitability rates.

At Group level, the completion of Project Sky marks the completion of the large portfolio consolidation transactions, which have been implemented at high speeds in the last 18 months, ensuring the limitation of NPLs to single digits within the next months (Q2 2022), in full alignment with Strategic Plan (Project Tomorrow) of Alpha Bank. The outstanding portfolios for sale are around Euro 1 billion, while for the remaining NPL stock, an organic treatment is foreseen.

Fast transaction implementation with a new major investor

Despite the fact that, at the same time, two more transactions are taking place in Cyprus (Helix III and Starlight), the bidding process for Sky was completed in an extremely short period of time and ensured high levels of competition with the participation of all major investors. flexible trading structure that allowed bidding on either side of the portfolio.

The quality and size of Cerberus, the largest NPL investor, Real Estate in Europe, allows Alpha Bank to build a strategic relationship with one of the largest funds in the world, while, at the same time, creates prospects for further investments to support the economic development of Cyprus.

Cerberus expressed interest in utilizing a significant number of Alpha Bank Cyprus employees, thus allowing the continuation of their employment and career prospects, in the management of the Sky portfolio.

Alpha Bank has already informed ETYK (Cyprus Bank Employees Association) and is waiting for the start of the consultations, in order, between the signing and the completion of the transaction, to ensure that any transferred employees will retain not only all their rights but also the possibility of returning to the Bank in the future.

The Cerberus Group is one of the most specialized investors in real estate and non-performing loans, having acquired more than 300 individual portfolios in Europe, Asia and the USA. Especially in Europe, since 2013 the group has completed NPL and REO transactions with a total nominal value of approximately Euro 72 billion in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy.