Portfolio Advisory Group. ISSUE 3: Debating Deleverage

The task facing European banks as they seek to deleverage is enormous. Many banks around Europe have communicated that they have identified a whole raft of non core loan assets that they are seeking to aggressively run off or sell. We estimate that identified non core assets in the European banking sector exceed EUR 1.3 trn. 

Dealing with this massive issue will require a significant volume of transactions and, to put the scale required into context, the average annual European banking M&A market between 2003 and 2010 totalled just EUR 70 bn.