RBS sells Lombard assets in £150m deal
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Royal Bank of Scotland has sold offshore assets from its asset financing group Lombard to specialist lenders Investec and Shawbrook Bank for £150 million.
According to reports from Sky News, the still 73 per cent state-owned lender put around £200 million worth of assets up for sale in October in order to comply with new ring-fencing rules coming into force in 2019.
The sale price reported by the broadcaster suggest the assets have been offloaded for around £50m less than the assets’ previously reported price tag.
The new ring-fencing rules are intended to separate banks’ retail operations from riskier businesses such as investment banking.
The rules mean RBS’s UK retail business cannot own assets outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). The assets are currently held in the Channel Islands.
RBS has declined to confirm the report but a spokesperson for Investec said: “Investec has confirmed that together with Shawbrook it has acquired the offshore asset book of the Lombard leasing unit. This is part of our long-term strategy to increase the specialist finance services we can provide to our clients.
Lombard Finance is one of the UK’s largest asset finance companies, founded over 150 years ago, with some 52,000 business clients and £6bn of lending in 2015.
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