Bain Raises $1.4 Billion for European Bank Loans

(Bloomberg) -- Bain Capital's credit arm raised 1.25 billion euros ($1.41 billion) for a new fund to purchase European bank loans, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Bain Capital Credit's new Special Situations Europe fund will target banks' secured debt, non-performing loan portfolios and real estate assets, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information isn't public. The money raised for the fund, the first dedicated to European soured loans at Bain, exceeded an initial target of 1 billion euros, the person said.

An external spokeswoman for Bain declined to comment on the matter.

Bain purchased nine bank loan portfolios last year, with a gross book value of more than 4 billion euros across Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, the person said. Bain Capital has $105 billion in asset under management, according to its website.

European lenders' efforts to clean up their balance sheets since the global financial crisis have created a burgeoning market for trading non-performing loan exposures.

While more than a third below their peak, Italian lenders still had 222 billion euros of NPLs on their books as of June, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers data. Greek lenders are also seeking to slash 89 billion euros of bad debt from their books, equivalent to about half of the country's annual economic output.

To contact the reporter on this story: Luca Casiraghi in London at lcasiraghi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vivianne Rodrigues at vrodrigues3@bloomberg.net, Chris Vellacott

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.