Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo is reportedly seeking a bid for Coutts International, the wealth management unit of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), to deploy 16bn of surplus capital.
UK expansion was presently a top priority of Intesa with asset managers, insurers and private banks also in sights, Carlo Messina, chief executive of Intesa told The Financial Times.
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The lender recently emerged as one of the strongest eurozone lenders in the European Central Bank’s recent stress test.
RBS recently put up the international operations of Coutts for sale, and appointed Goldman Sachs to run the sale.
Intesa now is reportedly trying to convince RBS and its advisers to sell the whole of Coutts, which includes the UK business having the likes of Queen Elizabeth as customers.
RBS however, ruled out the sale of the UK franchise, though it agreed that the sale of the international arm was progressing.
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By GlobalDataSwitzerland’s Julius Baer, EFG, UBS, Credit Suisse, Singapore’s DBS and Brazil’s BTG Pactual are also considering bids for Coutts International, which is projected to be valued at over £500m.
The business made a £67m operating profit and managed £21.5bn in assets in 2013.
