BlackRock and Varde Partners are planning to submit bids for Italy’s cash-strapped lender Banca Carige next month, reported Reuters.
Carige currently faces a capital gap of around €630m and has bad loans worth €3.5bn.
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According to the report, BlackRock particularly wants to purchase the Italian bank’s bad loans.
The asset manager is also said to be eyeing Banca Cesare Ponti, Carige’s private banking arm.
However, the plan is expected to have two roadblocks.
One of these may come in the form of the Malacalza family, which is the biggest investor of the Italian lender.
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By GlobalDataLast year, the family dismissed the capital increase plan.
Failure to appease this family, which owns a 27.5% in Carige, may therefore prove fatal for potential acquirers in a shareholding meeting, Reuters said.
The other impediment would be the price to be set for purchasing the bad loans of the bank.
Carige was placed under temporary administration this January in order to resolve capital concerns.
The move followed the resignation of most of Carige’s board members.
Its board was replaced by three temporary administrators and a three-member surveillance committee appointed by the European Central Bank.
In the same month, Reuters reported that UniCredit, an Italian banking major, may purchase Carige.
