Santander buys 20% stake in $9B Signature multifamily portfolio

Signature Bridge Bank, under receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., sold a 20% stake in a $9 billion portfolio to Santander Bank for $1.1 billion.

Under the deal, the FDIC will retain an 80% interest in the portfolio, which is comprised of loans that are backed by rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartment properties in New York City.

Santander will oversee 100% of the portfolio’s assets.

“This transaction underscores our strength and scale, leveraging our considerable expertise in the sector,” said Ana Botín, Banco Santander executive chair, in a prepared statement. “We are a major participant in the U.S. multifamily space and this transaction plays to our strengths.”

Santander has a $13.5 billion multifamily real estate portfolio.

“Santander US is a top-ten multifamily bank real estate servicer and lender and this transaction will leverage that industry expertise while also deepening our franchise in the New York metro market,” said Tim Wennes, Santander US country head and Santander Bank president and CEO, in a prepared statement.

Speaking at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York last month, Botín said that the bank didn’t need to make acquisitions to grow, but that it would consider small acquisitions, Reuters reported. She said that Santander had plans to deepen its corporate presence in the U.S.

The bank said that the transaction will be accretive starting in 2024.

This is the final transaction in the FDIC’s plan to offload around $33 billion in commercial property loans once held by Signature Bank, which failed in March after falling victim to what the FDIC determined to be “poor management.”

The FDIC announced plans in September to sell stakes in Signature’s remaining assets, following its acquisition by New York Community Bank subsidiary Flagstar Bank in March and the sale of a $16.6 billion portfolio to PNC in October.

Last week, the FDIC sold a 20% stake in a $16.8 billion portfolio of commercial real estate loans to a joint venture between Blackstone Inc. and other investors for $1.2 billion.