Regional and midsized US banks have stepped up efforts to sell off their loan portfolios, looking to raise cash and cut their capital requirements after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic this spring.
Private credit investors including Ares and KKR said they were being offered more portfolios in areas such as car and consumer loans, commercial real estate and speciality finance. Loan prices had also become more attractive to buyers, with sellers offering larger discounts to face value in the past couple of months, some of the investors said.
Ares this week agreed to buy $3.5bn in lender finance loans from PacWest, a California bank that came under pressure after SVB’s March collapse. Ares paid $2.01bn in cash for the first tranche, less than its principal balance of $2.07bn. PacWest had previously raised $2.36bn by selling construction loans to real estate investors Kennedy Wilson.