Bankia bailout bill soars again to over €15bn
SPAIN’S fourth-largest lender Bankia is expected to today beg the state for more than €15bn (£12bn) to bail it out when its new management team presents a restructuring plan
“The help needed to clean up the bank will be more than €15bn,” a source told Reuters last night.
The bill is almost double the estimation of Spain’s finance minister Luis De Guindos, who just 24 hours earlier told parliament that Bankia needed an injection of at least €9bn.
The money will be used to cover the bank’s writedowns on losses connected to real estate assets such as soured property loans.
The €15bn would come on top of the €4.5bn in state loans that the government converted into equity in Bankia’s parent company BFA as part of the state takeover, giving the government a majority stake in the lender.
The Bank of Spain, the country’s central bank, has been trying to force its banks to deal with their legacy of bad real estate loans for months.
There are concerns that expensive bailouts of ailing lenders and regions could force the country into seeking international aid.