The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is poised to break up its Asian business after its attempted auction hit a number of problems.
A string of regulatory hurdles had emerged in recent weeks, derailing efforts to package the bank's operations across China, India and Southeast Asia into one saleable business, the Sunday Times reported yesterday.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group had moved into pole position to buy the assets after interest from HSBC Holdings and Standard Chartered cooled. But the report said the three shortlisted bidders were now more interested in cherry-picking individual operations rather than attempting to buy the business as a whole. RBS, 70 per cent owned by the British government, is selling its Asian assets as it pulls back to core markets.
An RBS spokeswoman said they were in active discussions with a number of potential bidders.
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