Alpha expects final bids for business loans

Alpha Bank is awaiting binding offers from three short-listed investors for the concession of its nonperforming corporate loan portfolio dubbed "Neptune," testing investor interest in the largest portfolio of secured corporate loans put up for sale by a Greek lender to date.

The three short-listed investment funds are US groups Apollo Global Management, Fortress Investment Group and Bain Capital, and they will table their binding bids before the end of this month.

According to the bulletin that the interested investors have received, the Neptune portfolio consists of NPLs worth 1.8 billion euros taken out by 1,008 small and medium-sized enterprises. They are secured against 4,048 properties, whose value is estimated at 1.1 billion euros.

The borrowers concerned are spread across the financial sector spectrum, an element that considerably diminishes the...