Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 7, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
UniCredit Bulbank sold €2.1 billion in loan risk to PGGM, marking a significant securitisation in Bulgaria to enhance capital efficiency.
MILAN (Reuters) -The Bulgarian unit of Italian bank UniCredit has completed a 2.1 billion euro ($2.5 billion) transaction with PGGM, the asset manager of Dutch healthcare workers' pension fund PFZW, to shift risk on corporate loans.
The transaction, dubbed Project ARTS Silver-2, is the largest of its kind in Bulgaria and one of the biggest ones in central and eastern Europe (CEE), UniCredit said.
Banks use significant risk transfer transactions to free up capital that would be otherwise tied up against their loan book for regulatory purposes.
Under such deals, which are described as synthetic because there is no sale or transfer of the underlying assets like in an ordinary securitisation, banks shift asset risk off their balance sheet.
With Project ARTS Silver-2, UniCredit Bulbank sold the second loss tranche of a securitised portfolio of corporate and small business loans to PGGM. It retained the first loss and senior tranches.
Securitising an asset entails issuing notes backed by the assets.
UniCredit's latest deal follows Project ARTS Morava which UniCredit completed in 2024, also with PGGM.
"The size of the deal and the resulting capital reliefs, achieved both at bank and group level, confirm UniCredit's strategy on capital efficiency," said Stefano Chiarlone, head of balance sheet management at UniCredit.
"After Italy and Germany, UniCredit has successfully expanded Significant Risk Transfer (securitisations) to the CEE area, where this transaction represents our fifth deal."
($1 = 0.8520 euros)
(Reporting by Valentina ZaEditing by Keith Weir)
Project ARTS Silver-2 is a significant risk transfer transaction where UniCredit Bulbank sold a €2.1 billion tranche of corporate and small business loans to PGGM, the asset manager for a Dutch pension fund.
Banks use significant risk transfer transactions to free up capital that would otherwise be tied up against their loan book for regulatory purposes, allowing them to manage their balance sheets more efficiently.
In the Project ARTS Silver-2 transaction, UniCredit Bulbank retained the first loss and senior tranches of the securitised portfolio while selling the second loss tranche.
This deal follows UniCredit's previous Project ARTS Morava, completed in 2024, and represents the bank's fifth significant risk transfer transaction in the Central and Eastern Europe region.
The size of the deal and the resulting capital reliefs confirm UniCredit's strategy on capital efficiency, enhancing their ability to manage risk and optimize their balance sheet.
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