Advertisement
Advertisement
Standard Chartered
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Standard Chartered appears to be divesting its consumer finance businesses in Hong Kong and South Korea. Photo: Dickson Lee

Standard Chartered looking to sell Hong Kong lender PrimeCredit

Standard Chartered is seeking buyers for Hong Kong consumer finance business PrimeCredit, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Asia-focused bank sells peripheral businesses.

The move comes after the London-based bank said in November that it aimed to use capital more effectively. It said it would close or sell small units that were not in its biggest markets, did not work well with other operations or did not produce sufficient profit.

The bank, which recently reshuffled management after saying 10 years of earnings growth likely ended last year, is also considering the sale of its Swiss private bank, it was reported last week.

Standard Chartered is working with an adviser to sell PrimeCredit, which the bank bought in 2004, said the sources.

The bank is likely to kick off an auction to sell PrimeCredit for between US$500 million and US$700 million in the next few weeks, they said.

A spokeswoman for Standard Chartered said: "We don't comment on market speculation."

PrimeCredit is a Hong Kong high-street lender specialising in high-interest loans for customers with little credit history.

The lender booked after-tax profit of HK$251 million for the six months to June, 5 per cent more than in the same period a year earlier, regulatory filings show. Impairment charges rose 36 per cent to HK$169.6 million.

The auction for PrimeCredit is likely to attract interest from banks in Australia, China and Singapore, the sources said.

Banks from those countries had shown strong interest in the sale of two Hong Kong family-run banks last year.

Standard Chartered's Hong Kong-listed shares closed up 0.89 per cent yesterday, while the benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 0.34 per cent.

Over the past year, the bank's London-listed shares have fallen 23.6 per cent, compared with a 19.2 per cent fall in the FTSE All Share Banks Index.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: StanChart's HK consumer finance unit up for sale
Post