To date, some €3 bln of bad loans have already been restructured, almost half of its target, that corresponds to about 30 big debtors.

Not among them is the Church of Cyprus, which has offered to put up land as collateral and to restructure some €100 mln of its own NPLs held at the bank, similar to two deals already concluded at the Hellenic Bank.

Meanwhile, press reports over the weekend suggested that BoC had reached a deal with major debtors, namely the three property companies Pafilia, Zavos and Tsokkos Hotels, with two more restructuring underway.

The names of the three clients that have successfully restructured their obligations with BoC had made headlines last year when a confidential list of the Bank of Cyprus’ top-30 borrowers with non-performing loans was leaked to the press, the Cyprus Mail reported, adding that according to the list, which represented a snapshot of outstanding loans in June 2013, the Zavos group had €134 mln in un-serviced exposures, Tsokkos had €172 mln and Pafilia had €90 mln.

Earlier this month, Nick Smith, the bank’s head of restructurings and recoveries, had said that the lender was at a “tipping point” in reducing bad loans after the pace of restructurings picked up in the second quarter and is considering reducing its exposure in larger loans through syndication.

“Even though the official non-performing exposure levels will not change for about a year, those who today dismiss the progress made, will no longer be justified in doing so,” Smith said.

BoC saw its NPLs drop to €14.2 bln or 62% of its gross loans in September from almost €15 bln or 63% last December.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Cyprus has reduced in September its dependence on the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) by €230 mln tο €4.17 bln by the end of November, according to figures released by the Central Bank of Cyprus. This was down from €4.40 bln at the end of October.

Since the beginning of the year, the bank reduced its dependence on ELA by €3.2 bln, as at the end of December 2014, the facility stood at €7.4 bln.

Source: Financial Mirror