Last week, Spain’s so-called ‘bad bank’, which was set up in December 2012 to take over toxic property and land assets from the country’s troubled financial institutions in order to ‘cleanse’ their books, started promoting its first batch of properties.
The new state-run bank, ‘Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria’, known by its acronym SAREB, began its operation by putting 13,000 properties, once belonging to rescued lender Bankia, on the market.
In total, by the end of last year, SAREB had taken on 37 billion euros worth of assets from four nationalised banks. In exchange, the banks received EU rescue funds as well as bonds.
These assets, purchased at knock-down prices are to be sold on to investors over a 15-year period, offering a minimum return of 14 per cent.
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