£12bn of loans to be offloaded

Banks are expected to dispose of around €15 billion (£12.2bn) worth of European commercial property loans, with Lloyds Banking Group expected to be among the biggest sellers for the second year running, analysts have claimed.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has forecast that the value of commercial property loans sold by deleveraging banks – usually at a heavily discounted rate – will be 20 per cent higher than last year when sales amounted to €12.5bn.

According to the Co-Star Finance Blog, Lloyds led the UK market for such deals in 2012 followed by the Irish government-backed “bad bank” Nama.

This year, Commerzbank could sell-off part of its £5bn UK loan book, having appointed Barclays Capital to do a deal in November. Lloyds is also expected to bring the £500m Project Wagner to market.