EFG International says there's "no foundation" to a trading-floor rumor. Swiss private bank EFG International is denying market speculation of an impending buy-out by the Latsis family, which already owns nearly half the bank.

EFG told Reuters that there was officially "no foundation to such rumours,"and a couple of unnamed executives at the Zurich-based bank told the news wire pretty much the same thing.

Off-exchange

The rumor -- which was followed by a spike in EFG International's share price -- started on European trading floors, according to Reuters. It seems that dealers spotted spotted a number of large off-exchange transactions which they linked to a possible buy-out.

EFG International posted a net profit of $18.7 million for the first half of 2009, an 89% drop which includes one-off charges of $31 million.

Of these charges, $17.7 million arose from accelerated intangible amortisation principally relating to CM Advisors, the funds of hedge funds business the EFG International in 2006. The bank incurred a further one-off charge of $13.3 million when, at the end of February 2009, it had to adjust its dollar hedge on the reduced year-end 2008 accounting value of its life-insurance policy portfolio.

EFG International, part of Geneva-based EFG Group, had around $76 billion in client assets under management at the end of June 2009 -- up about 7% for the calendar year to date (with the MSCI World Stock Markets Index up about 19% for the same period). Greek-born shipping and banking tyccon Yiannis Latsis left his family a fortune of $5.4 billion when he died in 2003, according to Forbes magazine. -FWR

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