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The Bank of the Philippine Islands has sold the
fourth tranche of its nonperforming loans to a US-based bank, it
reported Tuesday.
In a disclosure to the Philippine
Stock Exchange, BPI said the Bank of America was the highest bidder
among other foreign participants in the auction it conducted last
March 23 for its P3.75-billion worth of bad loans.
The report stated that the two
banks are in the process of finalizing the sale documentation.
BPI made its first tranche of NPL
sale to Avenue Asia amounting to P2.4 billion in 2004. After a year,
the bank sold P8.6 billion in bad assets to Morgan Stanley.
In 2006 BPI sold P6.3 billion of
bad loans to Avenue Asia.
All in all, BPI had sold a total
of P19.3-billion worth of bad assets in the last three year.
Banks plan to dispose of more bad
assets to strengthen their balance sheets and improve profitability,
especially after Congress last month passed a bill that extended the
tax and other perks granted banks and buyers of their bad assets.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
said more than P100 billion in bad assets would be wiped out
following the extension of the Special Purpose Vehicle law.
-- Maricel E. Burgonio
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