The recent edition of the Re Italy Convention Day 2017 saw the participation of several managers from Prelios. The event, sponsored by the publication Monitor Immobiliare, was staged on the premises of the Italian Stock Exchange on 25 May.
Among them, some addressed the panels during the course of the day: in particular Andrea Cornetti spoke on the subject of "Real Estate funds and listed real estate companies: the coming market"; Stefano Montuschi on "NPL: the situation in Italy" and Giampaolo Corsini on "Housing: new sales channels".
We spoke to some of the participants at the Italian Real Estate event.
Andrea Cornetti, General Manager - Prelios Sgr
“Currently the market has two speeds. Milan and Rome have a different appeal compared to the rest of the country and are able to attract the curiosity and interest of many investors, above all from outside Italy. Because of this, real estate funds should look to create new products to increase the attraction of the market. Product innovation may include both different asset classes and the origin itself of products, which may come from upgrading, from public property or from problematic bank assets".
Stefano Montuschi, General Manager Business - Prelios Credit Servicing
“In Italy, NPL, ‘non-performing loans’ might be thought to mean ‘non possiamo liberarcene’ (can we ever get rid of them?). But impaired credits can also be a multi-faceted opportunity for investors. The key for banks is to make a complete prior analysis of guarantees by means of specialist due diligence, such as may be provided by highly-qualified operators such as Prelios Credit Servicing, increasing the subsequent opportunities. One possibility is GACS (the securitization of impaired debt held by the banks), which narrows the current gap between supply and demand with higher returns than today. Difficulties remain because Italian banks have little information about their NPLs, and this makes a detailed analysis of the underlying assets even more important, in order to establish their value. The renewal of GACS is a priority, given that it has broad and large-scale potential”:
Giampaolo Corsini, CEO - Prelios Valuations
“In the value chain, we make property valuations for assets used as mortgage guarantees to provide banks with the proper ratio of loans to value (LTV). This is a key service for effective risk mitigation within banks. Some time ago, to meet this often complex need, Prelios Valuations developed extremely sophisticated software able to provide credit risk officers within banks with an important valuation tool. We are about to release an update of our system, which is both broader and deeper”.