Banks agree to split ECS assets

Four banks in Portugal have reached an agreement to split the assets of ECS Capital.

Founded in 2006, ECS is a private equity and restructuring firm focused on the Portuguese market. ECS currently manages several funds directly in Portugal including:
The Fundo Albuquerque investment activities are focused on Growth Capital, Management Buy-In’s (MBI), Management Buy-Out’s (MBO), “Buy and Build” and Restructurings, primarily in Portugal and selectively in Spain.

The Fundo Recuperação and Fundo Recuperação Turismo are focused on acquiring defaulted or impaired corporate credits in order to recover companies with sustainable business models.
 
The Fundo Energia focuses mainly on investments in companies with high development potential that operate in the energy market.
 
The Portugal Strategic Growth Fund will invest in companies with high growth and appreciation potential that pursue their activity in the real estate space.

The banks are CGD, BCP, Novobanco and Santander and Oitante (the last which was created by the Bank of Portugal in 2015 and manages assets from the collapsed bank Banif) have now divided the assets in question.
These banks own the funds managed by ECS Capital and have reached an agreement to split the assets which will then allow the sale of ECS to the Davidson Kempner Fund (DK) to go ahead according to Jornal Económico.
Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Millennium BCP, Novobanco, Santander Totta and Oitante will remove six assets from the funds FLIT (Real Estate and Tourism Fund) and the Tourism Recovery Fund (Fundo Recuperação Turismo) before the sale of ‘Project Crow’ to DK, having divided the real estate assets that are not included in the sale among themselves.
There is, however, one tourism asset which will not be allocated to just one bank because of its size. Instead, a real estate investment fund will be set up to contain the real estate assets to be held by all of the banks involved.
The only thing that remained was for there to be an agreement between the banks on the assets left over for the sale to proceed.