BUCHAREST (Romania), March 1 (SeeNews) – The non-performing loans (NPLs) market in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) gained momentum in 2015-2016, led by Romania with estimated sales and ongoing transactions of 5 billion euro ($3.7 billion), a survey by global tax consultant Deloitte showed.
The survey counted transactions between January 2015 and October 2016, as well as ongoing ones.
Romania completed NPL transactions valued at 3.5 billion euro in 2015-2016 and has ongoing transactions worth 1.5 billion euro, Deloitte said on Wednesday in its annual CEE NPL report for 2017.
Next among the Southeastern European (SEE) countries covered by the report comes Croatia with a total of 2.2 billion euro in NPL transactions completed and ongoing in the review period.
Slovenia comes in third in the CEE region with transactions worth a total of 1.5 billion euro, followed by Serbia with 600 million euro and Bulgaria with 500 million euro in deals.
The total value of ongoing transactions in SEE stands at 3.7 billion euro, the report showed, while for CEE it was 5.4 billion euro.
In total, SEE countries 2015, 2016 and ongoing transactions on the NPL market amount to 9.8 billion euro, data from the report showed.
"As deal flow has been increasing, a greater number of NPL investors have entered the region which has resulted in enhanced market activity. In 2016, NPL investors showed a growing interest for retail mortgage portfolios in certain countries and this tendency is also expected in 2017," Deloitte said.
In CEE, the total face value of completed and ongoing deals amounted to 10.6 billion in 2016. The geographical distribution for completed deal volumes were the highest in Romania - 37%, and Hungary - 24%, followed by Poland - 11%, and Slovenia - 9%.
Most of the ongoing transactions in the CEE region are related to corporate portfolios - 3 billion euro, to residential - 800 million euro and to mixed portfolios with a face value of 1.6 billion euro, the consultancy firm added.
Following are 2015, 2016 and ongoing transactions in SEE countries mentioned in Deloitte's report (amounts in bln euro):
| |
Completed in 2015 |
Completed in 2016 |
Ongoing |
Total |
| Romania |
2.1 |
1.4 |
1.5 |
5.0 |
| Croatia |
0.2 |
0.5 |
1.5 |
2.2 |
| Slovenia |
0.4 |
0.5 |
0.6 |
1.5 |
| Serbia |
0.1 |
0.5 |
- |
0.6 |
| Bulgaria |
0.1 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
0.5 |
| TOTAL |
2.9 |
3.1 |
3.7 |
9.8 |
($=0.9489 euro)