Shrinking Sway of Aussie Banks
Westpac Bank entered into an agreement to sell Hastings Funds Management, a business it tried to sell earlier this year.
After a previous agreement fell through in August this year the Australian bank agreed to sell Hastings Funds Management to London based asset management business Northill Capital. The terms of the agreement (including price) are currently confidential.
The announcement comes after Westpac entered exclusive discussions to sell the business unit to Charter Hall in July 2017, only to see negotiations break down. Hastings currently manages $12.6 billion in funds on behalf of institutional investors. Northill Capital, which was established in London in 2010, had $48 billion in funds under management as at 30 September 2017.
Selling the Silver
This year has seen a spate of divestments by Australia's leading banks paring back and re-structuring their traditional banking business models while also exiting sectors and markets not aligned to their new core strategies. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) sold 100 percent of its Australian and New Zealand life insurance businesses to AIA Group for $3.8 billion.
Under the leadership of CEO Andrew Thorburn, National Australia Bank (NAB) has been disposing of poorly performing or non-core businesses, especially offshore. NAB agreed to sell a 55 percent interest in asset consulting business JANA to the Jana senior management team.
This followed close on the heels of NAB's sale of its private wealth business in Singapore and Hong Kong to Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, (OCBC). A deal that mirrored the move by fellow Australian lender ANZ, who sold their Asian wealth units to Singapore's DBS Bank.
