July 20, 2016, 23:55 / Finance

Alexandrovsky began purchasing retail loan portfolios of other banks

He announced the acquisition of Aimanibank car loans Maria Buravtseva Alexandrovsky Bank opened a series of transactions to acquire retail loan portfolios of other banks / E. Kuzmina / Vedomosti

Yesterday, Aleksandrovsky announced that on July 14 it acquired part of the high-quality car loan portfolio of CB Aymanibank LLC. The volume of the portfolio is several hundred million rubles, the press service said. She did not disclose the terms of the deal. The portfolio includes loans from clients from St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Moscow region with an average repayment period of more than 45 months. According to a bank representative, the bank’s own portfolio of car loans is insignificant, since the new shareholders set goals for the active development of retail lending only this year. There are plans to purchase portfolios from several hundred million to one billion rubles this year, subject to the presence of interesting offers on the market, says a bank representative. The bank is also considering purchasing loan portfolios in the corporate segment. The press service of Aimanibank did not respond to Vedomosti’s request yesterday.

Purchasing a portfolio allows you to avoid incurring costs associated with issuing a loan; in addition, the bank can purchase a portfolio that has been previously filtered from low-quality borrowers, says Maxim Osadchiy, head of the analytical department of BKF Bank. Many players resort to this instrument when there is free liquidity, notes Vadim Isakov, territorial director of BKS Premiere. But a truly high-quality portfolio is rarely sold at a significant discount, and with time, competent risk management and infrastructure, the bank could attract these loans much cheaper, he adds.

“Recently, 35-40% of cars are purchased on credit, the average size of a car loan is growing, St. Petersburg is among the leading cities in terms of car market growth, so we have a positive assessment of the market prospects and believe that car loans can provide significant support to the automotive industry,” - The press service of the bank's board of directors quotes Evgeny Lotvinov. Lotvinov and co-owner of the Adamant holding, Igor Leitis, bought Alexandrovsky from the owner of Ego-Holding, Alexander Kashin, in January. As of July 1, 2016, Alexandrovsky’s assets amounted to 10.2 billion rubles, capital – 1.6 billion rubles.

As of July 1, 2016, the share of loans to individuals in the total loan portfolio of Alexandrovsky was only 8.8%, and the share of car loans in the portfolio of loans to individuals did not exceed 1%, says Ekaterina Kirillova, an analyst for bank ratings at the RAEX agency (Expert RA) ). According to her, the purchase of a high-quality portfolio of car loans from Aimanibank may be associated both with the high profitability of loans in this market segment (20–22% per annum) and with the desire of Alexandrovsky to expand its customer base. If the quality of the asset is insufficiently assessed, the bank in such a transaction may purchase an asset that generates insufficient interest income and negatively affects the quality of the bank’s loan portfolio due to the high default rate of borrowers, she notes. As a rule, in such transactions, the selling bank compensates the buyer for losses in the event of borrower defaults, but this right only applies if the bank that sold the loan portfolio remains on the market during this period, Kirillova notes.

The car loan market continues to decline this year, as it strongly correlates with the dynamics of sales of new cars, Isakov predicts. At the end of the year, the decrease will be 15–20%, but in 2017 growth due to the low base effect cannot be ruled out, the expert argues.