* No private money raised after U.S., Europe roadshows
* Asia capital-raising mission begins in March
* Surviving cajas have "unproven management teams"
By Victoria Howley and Sonya Dowsett
LONDON/MADRID, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Even if the Spanish government is able to deliver on plans to engineer stock market listings for its struggling savings banks, coaxing investors to buy is going to be a tall order.
Some estimate that 50 billion euros ($68 billion) of new capital is needed by the unlisted regional savings banks. But the "cajas" have so far failed to raise any private money, despite investor roadshows in Europe and the United States.
A lack of visibility, unfamiliarity with the banks and a wider distrust of assets linked to the deflated Spanish property market is making attracting capital from institutions, sovereign wealth funds or private equity all the harder.
Fund managers have also highlighted declining profit margins, poor quality assets and confusing post-merger management structures in the sector.
"These new animals are fairly unknown. Equity investors would be asked to support unproven management teams with an unknown record on governance. It's too early to start talking about wholesale listings," one investment banker told Reuters.
The cajas are now focusing on Asia and have scheduled a capital-raising mission there in March, raising some expectations that sovereign wealth funds in the region will step into the breach and support them.
It is hard to see what will get overseas investors to bite. Even the FROB agency set up by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to oversee the restructuring of Spain's banks recognises that the country is overbanked.
"At the current juncture, many investors are not willing to give cajas the benefit of the doubt," Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING Bank, told Reuters on Friday.
BRANCHES OUT
Spain is at pains to stress the restructuring that has already taken place in the sector as it seeks to reassure nervous investors about its general financial health.
The FROB highlights steps it has already taken to rationalise the savings banks, cutting their number from 45 to 18 at the end of last year. It says they are also tackling excess capacity by closing 20-25 percent of branches.
That may not reassure potential investors.
"A lot of the cajas will have to cut branches; that is another reason that makes it hard to attract external capital," the investment banker said.
One group of investors not normally afraid of getting into such complex situations is private equity, and there has already been some interest in the sector from this quarter.
U.S. private equity firm J.C. Flowers has still to come through with a pledged investment in savings bank Banca Civica, but with the Spanish government opening its arms to capital from any source, more could step forward.
"They would be delighted (with private equity); they will take any external capital they can get," the banker added.
CHERRY PICKING
Among the cajas left after the forced government restructuring, only a few could make it onto the market with relative ease.
Arturo de Frias, head of Banks Research at Evolution Securities, says Barcelona-based La Caixa could lead the way in raising private capital. As the biggest of the cajas it has a loan book very similar to that of Spain's biggest bank Santander and its listed unit Banesto combined.
The fact that La Caixa already owns a quoted vehicle called Criteria Caixacorp might also make the process easier, de Frias said in a recent note. (Additional reporting by Steve Slater in LONDON; Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.7389 Euro)