Novobanco to sell Cape Verde luxury properties

Novobanco has sold properties belonging to a luxury resort in Cape Verde which owed €90 million to now extinct Banco Espírito Santo (BES).

The company that had owned it, developer Tecnicil had received over €90 million in loans from BES to build the Vila Verde Resort. But as the economic crisis and recession deepened, the assets were taken by Novobanco which will now sell the property assets.
The land and property assets up for sale are at the Vila Verde Resort in Santa Maria on the Ilha do Sal. The developer that began the project in 2006, and owes around €92.9 million to BES, was dragged down by the financial crises of 2007 and 2011, and given the burden of its loans was forced to hand over the properties to the bank to pay off its loans.
In question is an NPL and assets regarding collateral that include a dozen condominiums (in 4-5 floor buildings), swimming pool, and pool bar, as well as building plots, including a plot for the development of a hotel, semi-detached properties, town houses with land attached, many with pools.
Novobanco tried to sell off the assets in 2019, having included them in its Nata II portfolio, but ended up by excluding the properties because of a lack of realistic offers on those assets. Nata II went on to be sold to the US fund Davidson Kempner, while the bank has opted to sell off these Tecnicil assets separately.
Tecnicil was listed in Novobanco’s ‘black book’ of big defaulters in 2016, owing €92 million and the bank having 20% impairments on the loan according to Correio da Manhã newspaper.
The resort is currently being managed by another Portuguese hotel group, Agua Hotels which took over the management of the resort in 2015.