LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), April 26 (SeeNews) – Slovenia's 'bad bank', DUTB, said it has raised a record 434.7 million euro ($529 million) in cash from asset sales and debt repayments in 2017, equal to 21.5% of asset transfer value, with a record‑level after‑tax profit of 67.0 million euro.
DUTB, the company set up in 2013 to take over toxic banking assets, said it exceeded twofold the legislative requirement to sell off one-tenth of its assets annually in 2017. While the loan portfolio remained the main driver of inflows with 322 million euro, almost 100 million euro of cash was generated from the real estate portfolio, DUTB said in a Ljubljana bourse filing on Wednesday.
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In 2017, DUTB reduced its balance sheet by 23%, mainly on the claims part as additional real estate repossessions and movements in equity positions resulted in the latter two portfolios remaining at their last year's levels.
"Surplus liquidity allowed DUTB to perform several early debt repayments ahead of schedule during the year, while the last two outstanding bonds, issued during the transfers of assets, were repaid at the end of the year", the 'bad bank' explained.
DUTB, established by the state to facilitate the restructuring of banks of systemic importance, in 2013 and 2014 purchased claims against 577 debtors from six banks – NLB, NKBM, Abanka, Factor Banka, Probanka and Banka Celje – for a total of 1.6 billion euro.
($=0.821291 euro)