Italian banks Intesa Sanpaolo and
Unicredit said Tuesday that they have reached a preliminary deal
with American private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Coto
to unload some of their restructured loans.
Italian banks are cleaning up their balance sheets ahead of
stress tests on eurozone lenders later this year.
A joint statement by the banks said that deal aims to
"develop and implement an innovative solution to optimise the
performance and maximise the value of a selected corporate loan
portfolio under restructuring through proactive management and
additional funding at the asset level".
It added that restructuring service adviser Alvares and
Marsal was involved and that further details would be provided
later as talks about the partnership are ongoing.
Last month Intesa Sanpaolo posted huge fourth-quarter
losses following big write-downs on bad loans.
The Financial Times reported that the deal would enable the
banks to pool billions of euros of their bad loans into a
vehicle that will provide fresh capital for them.
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