Sources told Reuters that Societe Generale was looking to exit from its private bank in Asia. They added that the price for the SocGen's bank in Singapore was estimated to be USD 600 million.
Data compiled by Reuters indicated that France-based Societe Generale would be the third major financial institution to exit from the Asian market in five years. It can be recalled that last year, Bank of America Corp sold its Asia and other non-U.S. private banking business to Julius Baer. The price tag for that deal was worth CHF 860 million or USD 911 million. Late in 2009, ING Group also exited from its Asian private banking business and sold it to Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp for USD1.5 billion .
The growing number of high net worth individuals in the region was challenging small private lenders which did not have enough assets to rival those of global banks and even local banks. Competition was seen as one of the major reasons why private banks in Asia needed to consolidate. In a research note on Monday, Barclays said that 15 more private banks had opened in Asia from 2009. That brought the total to 45 lenders. The growing separation of the big players and the smaller ones in the field was alos seen as another factor for private banking consolidation in the Asian region.
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