Three banks - Standard Chartered, DBS Group and HSBC have put in first-round bids for Societe Generale's Asian private bank valued at $600 million, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. The report follows the news service’s article a few weeks ago stating that the French bank may sell the unit, although Societe Generale has so far not commented.

The news service said Credit Suisse and at “least one US financial institution are among 10 firms placing preliminary bids for the unit that manages about $13 billion worth of assets”. It said JP Morgan is advising on the sale.

When this publication has spoken to SocGen recently, there have been no indications that France’s second-biggest listed bank is looking for a sale. This publication understands that some recent actions, such as SocGen's recent sale of its Japanese private bank, may have prompted speculation about the Asia business.

As reported a few weeks ago, SocGen’s private banking, global investment management and services division reported a robust set of figures. It reported net banking income of €501 million ($663.2 million) in the second quarter of 2013, a rise of 10.5 per cent year-on-year, and €958 million in the first six months of the year, a rise of 3.7 per cent from a year earlier. Revenues were underpinned by the recovery in private banking - up 35.8 per cent in the latest quarter from a year ago, at €230 million. This trend resulted in a significant increase in the gross margin to 106 basis points vs 82 basis points in Q2 2012.  At the end of June, assets under management at the private bank fell €3.4 billion from the previous quarter, including an outflow of €600 million and a market effect of €2.4 billion.

If SocGen does spin off its Asia private bank, it would be doing so when the Asian region, while not without some problems, is still growing rapidly in terms of its high net worth population. Asia’s HNW individuals – those with more than $1 million of investable assets, held $12 trillion of assets, according to the 2013 Capgemini/RBC Wealth Report. Even so, the banking industry in Asia is not immune to some of the cost pressures that have seen banks in countries such as Switzerland engage in M&A activity (such as Credit Suisse’s sale of its Clariden Leu (Europe) business.)

Reuters said some of the bids for the SocGen Asia unit will not be more than $300 million. The report added that JP Morgan and SocGen did not comment, and neither did DBS, Credit Suisse, HSBC and Standard Chartered.