UK financial services group Oakwood has made its first foray into Spain with the purchase of Vesta Asset Management, an integrated loan servicing and asset management platform.
UK financial services group Oakwood has made its first foray into Spain with the purchase of Vesta Asset Management, an integrated loan servicing and asset management platform.
The acquisition expands the scope of Oakwood's European coverage to cover three of the largest non-performing loan markets: the UK, Ireland and Spain.
Vesta currently manages 65,000 individual loan accounts with a combined value of €500 mln ranging from residential mortgages to unsecured charged off consumer loans. Following the acquisition of Vesta, Oakwood group assets under management amount to over €3.5 bn.
Lucas Pico, the managing partner for Oakwood’s Spanish operations, has been appointed CEO of Vesta.
'Spain is a key strategic initiative for Oakwood,' said James Bamber, partner at Oakwood. 'Partnering with Lucas and acquiring Vesta provides Oakwood with a very strong base to provide outcomes-focused asset management services to investors acquiring unsecured, residential and commercial real estate loans portfolios in Spain and banks looking for a better and more effective management of the value in their loans books.'
The company will continue to expand its debt collection, portfolio management and master servicing capabilities in consumer finance and significantly expand its residential mortgage servicing operations, he added.
'The market needs a post-financial crisis loan management model and I believe we will deliver this to the Spanish market,' Pico added.
Founded in 2002, Oakwood moved into Commercial Mortgage Servicing last year with the hire of Emily Hadley as the head of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Loan Servicing.
