Blackstone was one of the biggest investors in the first wave of Spanish non-performing loans, buying several giant portfolios freed up by the restructuring of the Spanish banking system.
Some of these investments underperformed their ambitious business plans, and were buffeted by the pandemic — but they’re now coming good, thanks to a pivot to digital infrastructure in Spain’s data centre boom.
The largest trades Blackstone bought in Spain were truly enormous — Project Hercules, Cataluyna Banc’s €6.4bn pool is one example — but the biggest purchase of all was Project Quasar.
This was a joint venture with Santander to acquire Banco Popular’s real estate portfolio — a €30bn book by gross value, sold for roughly €10bn.
Santander had taken control of Banco Popular itself in June 2017 for a symbolic euro, after European authorities stepped in and deemed it was failing or likely to fail, writing off its capital instruments.
A combination of a large portfolio of non-performing loans, poor profitability in the rest of the business, and nervousness across financial markets meant that Banco Popular had no access to markets and no way to prop up the business — though subsequent investigations have turned up...
