OneWest Buys Large Loan Portfolio

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OneWest Bank has acquired a $1.4 billion multifamily and commercial real estate loan portfolio from Citibank NA.

The portfolio includes approximately 600 loans, said the Pasadena bank, which did not disclose financial terms. “This portfolio purchase represents our ongoing commitment to commercial real estate lending,” Chief Executive Joseph Otting said in a statement late Thursday. “We are excited to add quality earning assets to our balance sheet.”

Citi Holdings, the division that Chicago-based Citigroup created in 2009 to dispose of distressed businesses, likely accepted a fraction of the properties’ original worth. “These would have to be deeply discounted for the math to work,” Walter J. Mix III, a former California Department of Financial Institutions commissioner, told Bloomberg News.

OneWest is the successor to the mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp, which was seized by federal bank regulators in 2008. OneWest, whose investors include former Goldman Sachs banker J. Christopher Flowers, hedge-fund managers John Paulson and George Soros, and tech executive Michael Dell, has gone on to absorb other failed banks and now has 83 branches.

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