HSBCto snap up RBS assets
HSBC Holdings is understood to be in talks to buy the Asian banking assets of stricken rival Royal Bank of Scotland.
RBS is trying to offload its Chinese, Indian and Malaysian retail and commercial banking assets to pay back some of the government’s giant £37bn bailout.
Talks between RBS and Standard Chartered over the assets broke down at the weekend, after the banks failed to agree on a price.
That leaves HSBC, which already has a strong focus in Asia, as the frontrunner. Chairman Stephen Green is now said to be haggling over the price.
HSBC has fared well during the credit crunch. It launched a massive £12bn rights issue earlier this year to build a war chest to fund acquisitions of banking units from weaker rivals.
“RBS is in ongoing discussions with bidders for the remaining assets it has decided to sell in Asia and will make further announcements as appropriate,” an RBS spokeswoman said yesterday.
Standard Chartered’s attempt to snap up the assets failed because it was willing to pay about $200m – much less than RBS was holding out for.
ABN AMRO FORCED TO DELAY ITS ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLANS
NATIONALISED Dutch bank ABN AMRO postponed the legal separation of some assets owned by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), delaying a key step in its restructuring by several months.
The bank said it now expects the separation to occur in the first quarter of 2010 at the earliest instead of by the end of this year.
It needs to separate the assets to enable it to merge with the local assets of Fortis before a planned flotation.
An ABN spokesman said the process was complex and had never been tried before, which is why the bank could not meet its original target.
“It is envisaged that the legal demerger will take place in the first quarter of 2010 followed by the legal separation within two months,”ABNsaid. In 2007, a consortium that included Fortis, Santander and RBS bought ABN for €72bn (then £49bn) intending to split it up. Before the allocation of RBS’s pieces could be completed, the Dutch state nationalised ABN in October 2008.