RBI securitizes € 705 million loan portfolio (press release):

Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) has entered into the securitization of a portfolio consisting of Austrian and German real estate loans and selected corporate loans with a final volume of € 705 million as part of its securitization program “ROOF“. The synthetic securitization was tranched into a senior and a junior risk position. The credit risk of the junior tranche was sold to an investor, while RBI kept the senior tranche.

The transaction leads to a reduction in RBI’s risk-weighted assets (RWA) of approximately € 340 million, thus strengthening the Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio by 4 basis points.

The investor into the junior tranche is a fund dedicated to invest in bank loans, managed by Mariner Investment Group, LLC, the global alternative asset manager which was founded in 1992 (Mariner).

“The successful transaction is another step towards optimization of our balance sheet and strengthening of our equity. We aim to strengthen our equity position by at least 20 basis points per year through securitization”, says Martin Grüll, CFO of RBI.