Novobanco will make €62 million from selling logistics assets

Novobanco has sold a portfolio of logistics assets in Portugal for €208 million and says the deal will have a positive impact of €62 million on this year’s accounts, as well as a 35 basis point improvement in the capital ratio.

Without giving figures on the deal, the bank revealed on Monday an agreement for the sale of a real estate portfolio comprising predominantly logistics assets, held by real estate funds NB Património and NB Logística, both managed by GNB Real Estate, and in which the banking institution held, on average, a stake of around 75%.

This Friday, Novobanco made a new clarification to the market, informing the price of the sale after a competitive bid process and the impact it will have on the bank’s income statement if the transaction is completed. It did not indicate who the buyer would be.

In the previous statement, the bank spoke of the success of the operation, which “reflects the positive moment of the market in this real estate segment, with a significant reduction in yield over the last 12 months and consequent increase in price, given the higher demand for logistics assets post-pandemic.

This deal will give an even bigger boost to Novobanco’s profits, which doubled in the first quarter of the year to €142.7 million.

Since it was sold to the Lone Star fund, the bank has been undergoing deep restructuring and making portfolio sales of troubled and deemed non-core assets. Many of these operations generated million-dollar losses for the bank, forcing the Resolution Fund to inject money (more than €3 billion) into the institution to offset the losses and restore the capital balance.