KRUK wins its first auction in Italy

The KRUK Group, a leader of the debt management market in Central Europe, has won an auction to purchase a debt portfolio from the Italian bank UBI (Unione di Banche Italiane), with a face value of EUR 83m, or approximately PLN 357m.

“After successful purchases of our first portfolios in Germany, we have now won an auction in Italy. It was run by UBI, the fourth biggest bank in Italy and the largest bank in its region. We may have won the auction, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us related to the signing of the agreement by our securitisation company, KRUK ItaCapital, and finalising the transaction,” said Piotr Krupa, President of the Management Board of KRUK S.A.

In early November 2015, KRUK set up two companies in Italy, KRUK Italia and ItaCapital, based in Milan. KRUK Italia’s business is the provision of debt management services to third parties and managing debt portfolios purchased by the Group in Italy. KRUK ItaCapital is a securitisation company, and its core business is debt purchasing.

“We had a close look at about ten to twenty portfolios in Italy, and it took us several months to prepare for a potential transaction. UBI’s portfolio was valued with experienced local players. We may initially work with them on managing the portfolio, before we develop our own operations. We are still at an early stage of entering the Italian market,” added Mr Krupa.

In the first three quarters of 2015, companies of the KRUK Group purchased 48 debt portfolios with a nominal value of PLN 2.9bn for PLN 292m. In the third quarter alone, KRUK invested PLN 70m in portfolios with a nominal value of PLN 607m, purchased in all its markets, including Germany.