BARCLAYS has priced a mortgage-backed securities transaction that is financing the sale of its Italian home loans to GoldenTree Asset Management.
Under the deal, Barclays is transferring the mortgages – which have a 4.1 billion euros (S$6 billion) face value – to a special-purpose vehicle called Miltonia Mortgage Finance Srl. Miltonia will then issue notes backed by the mortgages.
The transaction is part of Barclays’ exit from Italian retail banking, which follows the sale of its consumer-finance operations in the country to Mediobanca in 2015.
While funds and accounts managed by GoldenTree have agreed to purchase a portion of the Miltonia-issued securities, Barclays will hold on to the largest, a 3.65 billion euros chunk of class A bonds.
The senior notes, which were priced at par, will have an initial margin of 90 basis points over three-month Euribor, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The mezzanine and junior portions of the Miltonia notes have been priced at a discount to their face value, the source said, asking not to be identified because the details are not public.
GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Barclays will also hold a slice of the other types of notes to comply with regulatory requirements. On top of that, it will receive cash proceeds of approximately 400 million euros, including a small deferred portion to come from cashflow generated from the portfolio, it said in an Apr 24 statement.
A representative for GoldenTree did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative for Barclays said the bank had no comment beyond the Apr 24 statement. BLOOMBERG
