Banks Put In Final Bids To Buy Societe Generale's Asia Private Banking Unit - Report

Tom Burroughes

26 November 2013

Singapore's DBS Group Holdings, the Netherlands-headquartered ABN AMRO and Switzerland’s Credit Suisse have put in final round bids to buy Societe Generale's Asian private bank, which is being valued at around $400 million, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.

The French bank has a shortlist of five potential buyers but it was not immediately obvious if all of the firms had put in final bids, due yesterday, the news service said.

The report said that initial price expectations for the business ranged from between $300 million to $600 million.

By way of comparison, when Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp in 2009 bought the Asia private bank of Netherlands-based ING in 2009, it paid $1.5 billion for that unit.

This publication is in contact with , but the bank declined to comment. It hasn’t commented on the matter when contacted about these stories in recent weeks.

DBS, Credit Suisse and ABN AMRO also declined to comment, Reuters said.

SocGen's Asian private bank unit manages about $13 billion, below the $20 billion mark that the industry has come to see as necessary for critical mass in the region.

DBS is seen by many as a leading contender for the unit, the report said.

UBS and Royal Bank of Canada have been among some of the bidders looking at this business in the earlier stages of the sale; UK-listed Standard Chartered Plc was also an early bidder but has since dropped out of the running.

There have been a number of M&A deals consolidating wealth management in the Asia region; strong growth in the number of high net worth individuals hasn’t fully offset the impact of rising global regulatory costs and the pressures on firms to wring out efficiencies. As previously mentioned, ING sold its private bank in 2009 to OCBC (that unit has been renamed as Bank of Singapore) – while Bank of America has sold its Asian and European wealth management arm to Julius Baer.