Three banks vie for RBS Asian assets
HSBC Holdings, Standard Chartered and Australian and New Zealand Banking Group are vying to buy the Asian operations of struggling Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
Sources confirmed the three banks had all made early-stage bids for units RBS has put up for sale and received detailed information.
Analysts have valued the deal at up to US$2 billion.
In Hong Kong and on the mainland, RBS is selling its retail and commercial banking operations.
It will hang on to its global banking and markets business, which provides loans and investment banking products to very large firms. RBS needs to raise cash after staggering credit crunch losses of ?24 billion (HK$277.57 billion) last year toppled it into nationalisation.
It is now 70 per cent owned by the British government.
The trio of potential bidders are understood to be the only banks to have seriously expressed interest in RBS' Asian operations since they were put on the block in February.
Bank of China mulled joining the fray but its interest was only lukewarm because Beijing was unlikely to approve yet another mainland investment into a troubled western financial institution.
It is understood RBS has put 11 of its Asian businesses on the block and will be flexible in allowing the trio of bidders to cherry-pick the assets.
The South China Morning Post reported in February that ANZ was a determined bidder for RBS' Asian arm.
It retained Credit Suisse as an external adviser very early on in the process. Standard Chartered has since hired UBS and Goldman Sachs.
HSBC seems the least likely to progress to a formal bid. It has an internal team examining a possible deal but has not called in outside counsel.
RBS and HSBC declined to comment. Spokesmen for ANZ and Standard Chartered could not be reached.
