RHJ International (RHJI), the Belgium -based owner of British private bank Kleinwort Benson, has written to shareholders urging them to sit tight before an end-of-summer deadline to buy Deutsche Bank’s BHF-Bank.
RHJI said that it could not pull out of the BHF-Bank bid before the end of the summer without being exposed to possible compensation claims.
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"The company has existing contractual commitments in respect of the BHF transaction to both Deutsche Bank, as the seller, and to our co-investors," RHJ said in the letter.
RHJI reached an agreement with Deutsche Bank on the acquisition of BHF-Bank for 384 million euros in September last year, but is still waiting for the German regulator BaFin to approve the deal.
The group also rejected a set of complaints by a hedge funds group over the planned purchase and RHJI’s corporate structure.
At the end of May, the rebel group representing 4% of RHJI’s share capital asked the firm to give its more than EUR200 million in free cash back to shareholders and abandon its bid for HF-Bank unit.
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By GlobalDataThe rebel group led by Geneva-based Equilibria Capital, accused RHJI of ‘very clear value destruction’ through ‘poor investments’ and ‘weak execution’.
"We always recognised that building our business during a prolonged market downturn would be difficult," it said in the letter. "Calls for a break-up of the business therefore seem unconstructive and damaging."
