While the bank declined to comment, according to one of the published reports, in the Financial Times, the operation is being put up for sale as the FTSE 100-listed, London-based company is shedding “a number of poorly performing assets across the world” as it looks to revive its ailing share price,
In November, Standard Chartered 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 reports full-year results next month, plans to sell or wind down any business that falls foul of its five filters, based on growth, returns, dividend capacity, network and strategic value,” the FT said in its report.
Standard Chartered is said to be looking for $500m to $700m or more from the sale, or $374m to $574m more than it paid for PrimeCredit in 2004.
Industry trend
Other major international banks have also been getting rid of under-performing operations in recent years, including Barclays and HSBC. As reported, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man have seen a procession of banks close their doors over the last few years, which followed a period during which the market consolidated, as large players like Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds Banking Group acquired smaller rivals, and thus also reduced the number of active deposit-taking players.
In September of last year, HSBC, one of the Gulf's largest international banks, said it would stop offering wealth management products in Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon, as part of its paring-down strategy.
Last year, the Gibraltar Government approved plans to encourage the creation of a new locally-owned and run credit institution, to be called the Gibraltar International Bank, to fill what it said was a need in the marketplace that was made more urgent by the then-recent news that Barclays was planning to reduce its presence in the jurisdiction.
