Tuesday, December 4, 2012

GE's Swiss lending unit for sale, UBS to bid




Your turn to curtsy, my turn to bow.  General Electric wants to sell its Swiss consumer lending business and UBS  is one of the possible bidders, in a deal that could be worth up to 1.5 billion Swiss francs ($1.6 billion), sources said. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters UBS was one of at least two parties who planned to submit bids for GE Money Bank in an auction process.

"GE wants to finalize the sale ... by the end of the first quarter," said one of the sources. The disposal is part of a plan by the U.S. conglomerate to shed non-core assets, such as a $1.5 billion stake in Thailand's fifth-largest lender Bank of Ayudhya BAY.BK.

If UBS were to buy the Swiss unit it would be the first deal of note for Switzerland's biggest bank since the financial crisis, when it ran up $50 billion in subprime losses and took a Swiss government bailout in 2008.  A UBS purchase of GE Money Bank would confirm the bank's stated desire to refocus on its home market and the core wealth management business as it scales back in investment banking.....

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