ANZ sells non-core businesses in five Asian markets to DBS

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has agreed to sell its retail and wealth management businesses in five Asian markets, including Hong Kong, to Singapore lender DBS as it seeks to focus on institutional banking in the region, according to chief executive Shayne Elliott.

The deal will see DBS pay about S$110 million above the book value of the businesses in Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and Indonesia.

Speaking in an interview with the South China Morning Post after announcing the deal on Monday, Elliott says the disposal does not mean a withdrawal from Asia as the Melbourne-headquartered lender will continue to expand its institutional banking business in trade, foreign-exchange, debt and yuan services for corporate clients in the region.

“We are definitely not leaving as we are very committed to this region. What we are doing is to dispose of our non-core businesses as the retail banking and wealth management operations in these markets are tiny. We want to focus our resources on what we are good at, which include retail banking in our home markets in Australia and New Zealand as well as institutional banking in Asia,” Elliott said.

“We want to become a simpler, smaller but more profitable bank. We believe we can achieve this goal if we focus on what we are good at.”

ANZ now has about 5,000 staff in the retail and wealth management businesses in the five markets. Elliott said 80 per cent of them would join DBS to ensure those 1.3 million customers would continue to enjoy the services.