2nd UPDATE: HSBC To Sell Chilean Retail Banking Unit To Brazil's Itau
September 29 2011 - 12:30PM
Dow Jones News
HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC) on Thursday said it has agreed to sell
its Chilean retail banking operations to Brazil's largest
private-sector bank in terms of assets, Itau Unibanco Holding SA
(ITUB, ITUB4.BR).
HSBC's operation in Chile focuses on wealthy individuals, with
some 4,000 customers and assets worth $20 million. The U.K. bank
will maintain its investment and commercial banking operations in
Chile.
The sale is subject to regulatory approvals and should be
completed in the fourth quarter of 2011, HSBC said in a
statement.
In a recent interview to the Brazilian financial newspaper Valor
Economico, HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said HSBC's
priority areas are China, India, Brazil, Mexico, the U.K. and
France.
For Itau Unibanco, the move continues the expansion of the
Brazilian bank across the region. Itau first started operations in
Chile in 2006, when it bought the assets of BankBoston, and the
unit has $6.7 billion in total assets.
In terms of loans, Itau Chile currently has a 19% share of
Chile's high-income clients and aims to increase that stake to 25%
in coming years, Boris Buvinic, head of the bank's Chile
operations, said at a press conference in Santiago.
Itau Chile has some 100,000 high-end retail clients and seeks to
gain 15,000-17,000 new clients a year, Buvinic said.
Buvinic and HSBC Chile general manager Gustavo Costa both
declined to release the cost for the transaction.
In August, investment bank BTG Pactual said it plans to merge
with Chile's Celfin. BTG has about BRL98 billion in assets under
management, while Celfin is a leading financial and brokerage firm
with operations in Chile, Peru and Colombia with $11 billion in
third-party and private-wealth assets under management.
In the last two years, Latin America's largest bank by assets,
Brazil's government-controlled Banco do Brasil SA (BDORY,
BBAS3.BR), acquired a controlling stake in Argentina's Banco
Patagonia SA (BPAT.BA), bought a small bank called EuroBank and
said that it is looking for other acquisition opportunities,
primarily in South America, to further its strategy.
-By Rogerio Jelmayer, Dow Jones Newswires; 5511-3544-7073;
rogerio.jelmayer@dowjones.com
-Carolina Pica in Santiago contributed to this article.
Banco Do Brasil (PK) (USOTC:BDORY)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2024 to Oct 2024
Banco Do Brasil (PK) (USOTC:BDORY)
Historical Stock Chart
From Oct 2023 to Oct 2024
