Mortgage lender Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL) has sold ₹1,375 crore worth of wholesale real estate project finance loans to funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management.
The transaction is structured using Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) securitization guidelines, DHFL said on Tuesday, adding a residential project in Mumbai which is close to completion is security for the loans.
The sale follows a massive drop in DHFL’s loan disbursements in the December quarter—down 95% sequentially to ₹510 crore—after defaults by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) sent shock waves across non-banking finance companies.
“We recently committed to expeditiously bring down our project finance exposure. Within less than two months of making the above commitment, (the) company has consummated the above transaction that reduces its project finance book by about 8%. We will continue to focus on growing our retail lending franchise,” DHFL chairman and managing director Kapil Wadhawan said in a statement.
DHFL said it plans to reduce its real estate project finance exposure further through more such transactions. Certus Capital was financial advisor on the transaction.
“This first-of-its-kind transaction in India is representative of how we methodically apply our multi-asset class, structuring, underwriting, investing and restructuring expertise to partner with Asian financial institutions to help them meet their objectives. Our large scale, long term flexible capital, regional presence and global experience enable us to quickly deliver solutions that most other institutions simply cannot,” said Pedro Urquidi, managing director, head of Europe and co-portfolio manager, Oaktree.
As of 30 September, Oaktree managed $124 billion worldwide in assets across credit, private equity, real estate and listed equities.
Source: Mint