LONDON: U.S. private equity firm Apollo has bought a portfolio of Irish home loans from Britain's Lloyds Banking Group for 257 million pounds or $419.4 million, less than half their nominal value.
Lloyds, which has lost billions of pounds in Ireland since the financial crisis and is one-third owned by the UK government, said on Friday the non-performing loans had a nominal value of 610 million pounds.
They were sold at a 58 percent discount to that value.
They were bought by Tanager Limited, an entity affiliated with Apollo Global Management.
Lloyds said the portfolio made a loss of 33 million pounds last year and the sale was part of the run-down in its non-core assets.
The bank said the deal was positive for its capital position and would not have a material impact due to existing provisions taken against the assets.
The deal is expected to complete in the first half on 2014.
Lloyds last week sold a 1 billion euro or $1.4 billion book of euro-zone commercial real estate loans to U.S. hedge fund Cerberus at a 21 percent discount to their nominal value. (Reuters)
