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LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Apollo has bought a portfolio of Irish home loans fromBritain's Lloyds Banking Group for 257 million pounds($419.4 million), less than half their nominal value.
Lloyds, which has lost billions of pounds in Ireland sincethe financial crisis and is one-third owned by the UKgovernment, said on Friday the non-performing loans had anominal value of 610 million pounds. They were sold at a 58percent discount to that value.
They were bought by Tanager Limited, an entity affiliatedwith Apollo Global Management.
Lloyds said the portfolio made a loss of 33 million poundslast year and the sale was part of the run-down in its non-coreassets. The bank said the deal was positive for its capitalposition and would not have a material impact due to existingprovisions taken against the assets. The deal is expected tocomplete in the first half on 2014.
Lloyds last week sold a 1 billion euro ($1.4 billion) bookof euro-zone commercial real estate loans to U.S. hedge fundCerberus at a 21 percent discount to their nominal value. ($1 = 0.6127 British pounds) (Reporting by Steve Slater. Editing by Jane Merriman)
