SAREB

SAREB (Sociedad de Gestión de Activos procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria) is a private asset management company created by the Spanish government and the EU in 2012 as a result of the country’s ongoing financial crisis.

A key element in the recovery of Spain’s economy, it was charged with taking on property development loans and real estate assets from Spanish banks in financial difficulty, ultimately disposing of these assets for maximum profitability and releasing the banks from the risks to which they were exposed.

Situation

As Transaction Manager of Institutional Sales at SAREB, Eduardo González Arias is responsible for closing transactions involving portfolios, corporate loans and assets with institutional investors. His team is in charge of the entire value chain for each transaction, from the origination of the opportunity, through vendor due diligence, to negotiation and closing.

It’s important for Mr. González Arias and the team to have utmost confidence in the investors’ reliability and that they are following each stage of the process appropriately. To that end, it’s crucial that all information and documentation involved in the deal process is provided in the correct format, meeting all necessary requirements and regulations.

The team initially used its financial advisor’s existing platform to create a virtual data room (VDR) to track investor activity and streamline the Q&A and due diligence processes. The outcome, however, was not what they expected. The platform required documents to be uploaded individually and, with more than 100 investors involved in any one particular deal, it soon became apparent that a more powerful tool was required to quickly upload and download documents.

Solution

SAREB was already aware of Intralinks’ reputation as one of the top providers of VDRs. Its ability to upload a vast number of large documents, as well as to manage a complicated Q&A process, made it a perfect fit to the company’s needs.

Benefits

Without Intralinks, SAREB would need twice as many analysts on each transaction, due to what had previously been a very time-consuming deal process.

Intralinks provides SAREB with a reliable VDR into which all documents and information pertaining to assets can be quickly uploaded, minimising the need for representations (reps) and warranties during negotiations for final acquisitions. Indeed, before using Intralinks, Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets were used to share the Q&A for qualifying reps and warranties, an impractical solution that led to time consuming discussions. Since using Intralinks, these discussions are no longer required, meaning agreements can be signed in much less time.

Ultimately, Intralinks gives Mr. González Arias and the team greater control and visibility over investors’ activity and Q&A, allowing them to receive accurate information regarding the entire process in a significantly shorter period of time.

By using the VDR’s permissioning feature to track activity, Mr. González Arias now has greater confidence in the reliability of investors, safe in the knowledge that due process is being followed. The investors themselves are comfortable with using Intralinks, speeding up the divestment process and easing the fulfilment of important milestones along the way. In addition, receiving a copy of the VDR on DVD after completing each transaction satisfies the requirements of SAREB’s internal compliance team.

SAREB has closed 36 deals using Intralinks in the last three years.