UNICREDIT SPA MILAN (Reuters) - Italian property firm Prelios (>> Prelios SpA) and U.S. asset manager Fortress (>> Fortress Investment Group LLC) have made "an important step forward" in talks with UniCredit (>> UniCredit SpA) to buy the Italian bank's bad loan unit UCCMB, one source close to the matter said on Thursday.
The source said more progress was needed before a final agreement, but a second source said that the parties had "reached a deal".
Italy's biggest bank by assets entered exclusive negotiations with Fortress and Prelios on Oct. 24. It said at the time it hoped to sell the UniCredit Credit Management Bank unit "in a reasonable amount of time".
UniCredit put UCCMB up for sale at the beginning of the year, aiming to strengthen its balance sheet and free up funds for new lending. It could pocket up to 700 million euros (554.97 million pounds) from the sale, sources said some weeks ago.
UCCMB manages more than 40 billion euros of non-performing loans, 20 percent of which belong to UniCredit. The rest are owned by other banks and several other entities.
UniCredit has also discussed selling UCCMB to U.S. fund Lone Star. The bank resumed talks with Lone Star when negotiations with the Prelios-Fortress consortium stalled, sources told Reuters last week.
Prelios could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Francesca Landini, writing by Agnieszka Flak; editing by Keiron Henderson)
