The European award ‘NPL Deal of the Year’ at the National Bank

By Leonidas Stergiou

The Frontier project won first place at the European Securitization Awards 2021, as announced at the Global Capital Awards dinner in London, in the presence of 300 distinguished executives from the European market. Because with the securitization of Frontier, a drastic reduction of non-performing loans was achieved, which, in contrast to most sales of “red loans” in the European market, strengthened the capital ratios of the EIB.

With the Frontier transaction, which was the milestone in 2021 for the consolidation of the NBG balance sheet and one of the largest securitizations of non-performing book exposures worth 6 billion euros, NBG essentially moved on to the next day, winning the bet for the single digit percentage 6 , 9% NPEs, along with the impact of the ongoing Frontier II, which is less than € 0.9 billion and will be completed this year. For the National Bank, the “NPL Deal of the Year” award was received in London by the Assistant General Manager of the EIB, Konstantinos Adamopoulos, who is the man who “ran” the whole project.

This distinction of the EIB had to compete with corresponding important and innovative European transactions, such as the first securitization in Spain after 2019, the first securitization in Italy, supported by a portfolio where most of the loans are paid directly from salary or pension of the Borrower, as well as others from Ireland and Portugal. The fact that Frontier managed to have a positive sign for the bank’s funds, was this special element that ranked the transaction with a difference first in relation to the respective transactions in Greece and at the same time, as it turns out, what aroused the special interest of the participants in the red loan market in Europe.

The award from Global Capital, in addition to the National, was also attended by transaction consultants Morgan Stanley and the Karatza Law Office. With the completion of Frontier II in the coming months and with a percentage close to 6%, the EIB, as stated by the CEO of the bank Pavlos Mylonas, achieves the goal set for the drastic reduction of NPEs a year earlier than initial program, which was for 2023. And by 2024 it will have caught the corresponding European average, which is around 3%.