U.S. Firm Partners with European Bank to Buy Distressed Assets

""ICP Financial"":http://www.icpfinancial.com, a U.S. real estate investment firm headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, has signed an agreement with an unnamed top 5 European bank to buy distressed commercial real estate property and mortgage portfolios directly from American banks.

The arrangement gives ICP a $4.8 billion purse to make individual purchases between $5 million and $180 million.

The partnership allows ICP Financial to control the financial power of its backer in what the company[IMAGE] [COLUMN_BREAK]

describes as a bailout of small to mid-sized American banks saddled with soured commercial real estate assets. The firm can also arrange private financing for banks in distress to raise more capital.

""We are extremely excited with this relationship,"" said ICP Financial's managing director, Brad Wozny. ""Everyone knows the wave of distressed commercial real estate mortgages coming due will continue. And with foreclosures in the United States expected to jump another 20 percent this year, American banks will be in a world of hurt.""

Wozny continued, ""Their risk of being seized by the FDIC is huge. To avoid this from happening, they'll need to quickly sell part, or all of, their mortgage and foreclosed property portfolios, and we're here to help them do that. Then they can re-capitalize, and kick start their lending operations once again. With this agreement in place, we can help out many of those banks who are in distress quickly and efficiently.""

ICP Financial's Europe-based banking partner is global, has more than 50,000 employees, and has nearly 125 years of banking experience, according to Wozny.