Gardant teams up with AMCO in race for BPERs NPL unit-sources

　　div classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodivpMILAN Reuters Elliottbacked Italian bad loan specialist Gardant has teamed up with stateowned rival AMCO in the race to secure the bad loan business put up for sale by Italys fifthlargest bank BPER Banca, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.p

　　pBids for BPERs bad loan recovery unit and a bad loan portfolio the bank will offload with the management unit are due in a couple of weeks, one of the sources said. A separate source said the portfolio could be of a total size of 2.5 billion euros 2.6 billion. pdivdivdiv classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodiv

　　pGardant is one of four major players on the Italian nonperforming loan market BPER has invited to bid, two of the sources said, adding the other suitors were Swedens Intrum, SofBankbacked doValue and Prelios, which is owned by U.S. fund Davidson Kempner.p

　　pA spokesperson for Intrum declined to comment on specific transactions but said “as Europes market leading credit management servicer, it is part of our ongoing business to regularly monitor different opportunities across our markets”.p

　　pNone of the other parties had a comment. p

　　pBPER follows in the tracks of other main Italian banks which in recent years have parted ways with their loan management businesses, using the capital gain on the units sale to offset the hit from the parallel disposal of a large bad loan portfolio.p

　　pBPER said on Friday it will unveil a new business plan on June 10.p

　　pFullyowned by Italys Treasury, AMCO benefits from a lower cost of funding than rivals, which gives it an advantage when bidding for bad loan portfolios.p

　　p1 0.9485 eurosp

　　p Reporting by Valentina ZaEditing by Keith Weirp

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