By Jeannette Neumann 

MADRID--Spain's "bad bank" said on Thursday that it had chosen major investment firms Apollo Global Management LLC, TPG Capital Management and Cerberus Capital Management LP to market and sell about EUR41 billion ($50.48 billion) worth of property assets on its behalf.

The coveted job will give the three U.S. firms commissions and insight into Spain's recovering real-estate market. The bad bank, known by its Spanish acronym Sareb, chose Spanish bank Banco de Sabadell SA in November to manage assets worth about EUR7 billion.

Apollo, which bought Banco Santander SA's real-estate service in January, will manage 44,089 real-estate assets worth about EUR14 billion over seven years, the bad bank said. Apollo's portfolio includes real-estate assets that were transferred to Sareb by banks including bailed out lender Catalunya Banca SA.

Sareb selected Haya Real Estate SA, owned by Cerberus, to market and sell 52,168 property loans worth about EUR18 billion over the next five years. Those loans were originated by Bankia SA, Spain's largest bailed out lender.

TPG, which owns 51% of a servicer previously held by Spanish lender Caixabank SA, has been selected to manage 30,342 properties and real-estate loans worth EUR9.2 billion over seven years. TPG's portfolio includes real-estate assets that had been on the books of banks including bailed out lender NCG Banco SA.

Sareb was created in November 2012 as a depository for the most troubled Spanish banks to unload EUR51 billion of risky real-estate loans, residential foreclosures, unfinished commercial properties and undeveloped pieces of land.

Nine Spanish lenders transferred nearly 200,000 real-estate related assets to the bad bank. Since then, these banks have also been marketing and selling properties and loans on behalf of the bad bank.

The three investment funds and Sabadell will take over the management of those properties from those banks on Jan. 1--a change aimed at diminishing perceived conflicts of interest. The banks that have been managing Sareb's assets are also trying to unload their own real-estate assets that weren't transferred to the bad bank.

The value of the properties and loans to be managed by the three funds and Sabadell is based on the value of those assets when they were transferred to Sareb, meaning their value could have changed.

Access Investor Kit for Bankia SA

Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=ES0113307021

Access Investor Kit for Banco de Sabadell SA

Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=ES0113860A34

Access Investor Kit for Banco Santander SA

Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=ES0113900J37

Access Investor Kit for Banco Santander SA

Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US05964H1059

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

Banco Santander (NYSE:SAN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more Banco Santander Charts.
Banco Santander (NYSE:SAN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more Banco Santander Charts.