By Giada Zampano
ROME--Italy's two largest banks, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI)
and UniCredit SpA (UCG.MI), on Tuesday announced they have signed a
memorandum of understanding with U.S. private-equity firm Kohlberg
Kravis Roberts & Co. that would allow the two lenders to unload
some of their restructured loans.
The agreememt, which also involves restructuring service adviser
Alvares and Marsal, aimed to "jointly develop and implement an
innovative solution to optimize the performance and maximize the
value of a selected corporate loan portfolio under restructuring
through proactive management and additional funding at the asset
level," the banks said in a joint statement.
They added that talks on the partnership are ongoing and that
further details will be disclosed as progress is made.
Last month, Intesa Sanpaolo posted a huge fourth-quarter loss,
hit by large write-downs on bad loans and the value of past
acquisitions. Italian banks are cleaning up their balance sheets
ahead of a check-up on the euro zone's largest lenders.
Intesa's results followed similar decisions by its Italian peer
UniCredit and underscore how, under pressure from regulators,
Italian banks opted to cut down the value of their assets to more
realistic amounts as the European Central Bank carries out a review
of the most important euro-zone lenders, before it takes over their
supervision toward the end of this year.
Write to Giada Zampano at giada.zampano@wsj.com
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