Bankia offloads VC stakes

The Spanish banking giant has sold a 28-strong portfolio of venture capital funds.

Troubled Spanish bank Bankia has sold 28 venture capital fund interests raising approximately €9.2 million for the bank, it said in a statement.

The bank said the assets were sold to an unidentified European mid-market secondaries fund following an auction involving more than 40 institutional investors.

The names of the funds sold were not disclosed.

Bankia has stakes in Diana Capital II, which began fundraising in February 2010 and closed on €100 million in January 2011, and Corpfin Capital’s third fund which closed in June 2006 with commitments of €223 million, according to PEI data.

Bankia also committed €2 million to Caixa Capital’s 2012-vintage growth and venture capital fund Caixa Innvierte Industria, via its subsidiary Catalan Finance Institute, according to PEI Research & Analytics.

The original request for sale was filed with the National Securities Market Commission, the regulatory body of the Spanish stock market, two days before Christmas last year.

Registered in Valencia and headquartered in Madrid, Bankia says it has over €268 billion of assets under management. The firm provides retail banking, private and business banking, financial and tax advisory services as well as asset management services including investment funds and pension funds.

Bankia was nationalised in 2012 and has been selling private equity and venture capital assets as part of the rationalisation of its debt accrued in the global financial crisis in  2008.