Blackstone to offer debt relief on some Spanish mortgages: Bloomberg

[July 01, 2015]  (Reuters) - Blackstone Group LP is seeking to restructure some of the 6.4 billion euros ($7.13 billion) of Spanish home loans it bought last year to help borrowers meet repayments, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. private equity fund is offering to cut outstanding debt or allow homeowners to vacate and walk away from their loans, Bloomberg said.

Blackstone will only foreclose on "strategic defaulters" who can pay but refuse to, while homeowners at risk of social exclusion, representing about 3 percent of Blackstone's portfolio, will be allowed to remain in their property paying subsidized rents, Bloomberg reported.

Blackstone bought a big mortgage portfolio from Spain's nationalized Catalunya Banc for 3.615 billion euros last year.

Anticipa, Blackstone's mortgage servicing unit, took over the management of the loan portfolio two months ago, with about 75 percent of the debt classified as under-performing or non-performing. It would take about seven years to restructure the debt, Bloomberg said.

Blackstone spokesman Andrew Dowler declined to comment on the report.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)

[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.