BT Securities last week helped the Mexican government complete its first sale of problem loans to Amresco Inc., a Dallas-based financial services company.
An Amresco-run fund, Amresco Financial I LP, paid about $17.7 million for the portfolio, or about 49.5% of its face value. An entity affiliated with Goldman, Sachs & Co. is a 50% investor in the deal, sources said.
A spokesman for Goldman declined to comment.
BT Securities, the brokerage arm of Bankers Trust New York Corp., won the mandate in May to coadvise Mexico's central bank on the sale of about $44 billion worth of problem bank loans. Mexico City-based GBM-Banco del Atlantico was the sale's other adviser.
Amresco was one of 13 bidders, including six companies in Mexico, four in the United States, and three in Europe.
"Given our proximity to and knowledge of the Mexican market, this is a natural extension of our asset management and acquisition activities," said Donald Perschbacher, acquisitions manager for Amresco. "The size of the potential portfolios is tremendous in Mexico and is a natural fit for us and our line of business."
Amresco specializes in acquisition, management, and resolution of business and real estate loans; commercial mortgage origination sales and servicing; subprime residential mortgage acquisition and securitization; and institutional real estate investment and advisory services.
Though Amresco has acquired subperforming and nonperforming assets in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this is its first venture into Mexico.
"We certainly envision ourselves in future sales and clearly want to be in that market for the long term," Mr. Perschbacher said.
The Mexican government seized the problem loans in December 1994, placing them under the authority of the Valuacion y Venta de Activos, or VVA. The loans were all performing assets that had been previously restructured.
About 95% of the loans sold to Amresco were real estate loans or small- business loans secured by real estate.
Bankers Trust assisted VVA, which is similar to the Resolution Trust Corp., by assembling documentation, including the prospectus. It organized the data room and the bidding process and marketed the deal to investors.
Bidders were required to do their own due diligence for the portfolio, and 18 organizations did so.
The VVA is expected to announce the next portfolio sale in August. These sales, which will increase in size, will continue for about five years.
