Bloomberg, Jul 27, 2015
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc is in talks for a management buyout of its Indian private banking operations.
The Edinburgh-based lender has signed a non-binding framework agreement and is in discussions to sell the business to Sanctum Wealth Management, it said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg on Monday. Sanctum is led by Shiv Gupta, an RBS managing director and head of its private wealth business in the country, according to the statement.
RBS has about $2.5 billion of private-banking assets under management in the South Asian nation, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. It is joining global banks including UBS Group AG, Morgan Stanley and Macquarie Group Ltd. that have exited India’s private-wealth market in the past two years.
The British lender’s private banking unit in India has offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai, according to its website.
RBS agreed in March to sell its Coutts International private banking business to Switzerland’s Union Bancaire Privee, shedding about 32 billion Swiss francs ($35 billion) of client assets. The sale included businesses managed from Switzerland, Monaco, the Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong.