trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/vkll2knkjxmvyqfi2psaza2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Commerzbank gets final offers for unit; AIB, Dexia post FY'17 results

Podcast

Street Talk Episode 87

Blog

A New Dawn for European Bank M&A Top 5 Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US banks' loan growth; record share buybacks; utility M&A outlook

Blog

Banking Essentials Newsletter 2021: December Edition


Commerzbank gets final offers for unit; AIB, Dexia post FY'17 results

* The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority has called for the calculation of insurers' solvency capital requirements to be further simplified, saying the availability of new data meant that new calibrations were needed in several areas of risk, including catastrophes.

* The European Commission published a draft agreement on the U.K.'s withdrawal from the EU under which Northern Ireland would remain within the bloc's customs union. However, British Prime Minister Theresa May rejected the proposal.

* The New York Department of Financial Services is asking Germany's Deutsche Bank AG and two other banks for details on their lending relationships with Jared Kushner, his family and his companies, insiders told Bloomberg News. It was unclear what the regulator was seeking for, but Kushner's wide-reaching financial relationships and ties to his father-in-law U.S. President Donald Trump have raised questions about possible conflicts of interest.

* Robert Bogucki, former head of Barclays Plc's New York foreign exchange trading operation, is challenging his U.S. indictment for allegedly defrauding client Hewlett-Packard Co. through so-called front-running, Bloomberg News reported. Bogucki, who is still employed with the lender, claims that prosecutors abused an international document request to extend the statute of limitations on his actions.

UK AND IRELAND

* The U.K. Prudential Regulation and Financial Conduct authorities and the South African Registrar of Banks have approved the £1.1 billion acquisition of Aldermore Group Plc by South Africa-based FirstRand Ltd. unit FirstRand International Ltd.

* Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc CFO Ewen Stevenson indicated that the lender may lay off more employees, telling Bloomberg Television that it was "inevitable that there will be further job cuts." The bank is speeding up its investment in digitalization.

* Lawyers representing more than 6,000 Lloyds Banking Group Plc investors told the U.K. High Court that the lender "concealed" key information about HBOS Plc from shareholders and "effectively ignored" the risks of its acquisition of company at the height of the financial crisis, The Daily Telegraph reported. The long-running £600 million case against Lloyds is nearing an end, with closing arguments starting yesterday.

* U.K. charities have urged lawmakers to put a limit on charges for rent-to-own lending and other forms of high-interest credit, The Daily Telegraph reported.

* Allied Irish Banks Plc proposed to pay a dividend of €326 million for full year 2017, up 30% year over year, as it reported after-tax profit from continuing operations attributable to owners of the parent of €1.11 billion, compared to €1.36 billion in 2016.

* Schroders Plc reported an increase in full-year 2017 after-tax profit to £594.4 million from £490.2 million earned in 2016. The company's board will propose a final dividend of 79 pence per share for 2017, an increase of 23% from the year earlier.

* Equitable Life Assurance Society has mandated Goldman Sachs Group to analyze a potential sale of the U.K.-based mutual insurer, the Financial Times reported. CEO Chris Wiscarson said the potential sale is part of a wider review of the company.

* Arrow Global Group Plc agreed terms for the acquisition of Europa Investimenti SpA and Parr Credit Srl for an equity value of €62 million and €20 million, respectively.

* Scotland's government yesterday disclosed plans to establish a publicly owned investment bank with capital of at least £2 billion. The planned Scottish National Investment Bank could be operational by 2020, according to the Financial Times.

* Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc acquired U.S.-based International Risk Consultants for $25 million.

GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Société Générale SA made final offers for Commerzbank AG's equity markets and commodities unit, insiders told Bloomberg News. The German lender expects to choose the final buyer in March.

* The German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg confirmed that they had agreed to sell a 94.9% stake in HSH Nordbank AG to U.S. private equity firms Cerberus Capital Management LP, J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC and GoldenTree Asset Management for around €1 billion.

* Meanwhile, HSH Nordbank AG is set to maintain its infrastructure business and is looking to expand in Asia following its privatization, according to Marcus Kleiner, head of the lender's infrastructure and rail segment, Börsen-Zeitung wrote. Infrastructure financing is one of the bank's key areas of growth.

* Deutsche Börse AG intends to expand its presence in Cork, Ireland, to 600 employees by hiring a further 200 jobs over the next two years. The group, which is due to move into a newly built Cork city center office in early 2019, is also planning to add product innovation capacities to drive the digitization of its business model.

* Uniqa Insurance Group AG reported fourth-quarter 2017 pretax profit of €60.8 million, down from €76.7 million earned in the same period in 2016. For full year 2017, the Austria-based group reported pretax profit of €242.2 million, up from €225.5 million in 2016.

* Raiffeisen Schweiz Genossenschaft said that Zurich prosecutors are probing the Swiss bank's former CEO, Pierin Vincenz, for alleged breach of trust linked to cashless payments business Aduno and private equity firm Investnet AG, Reuters reported.

* U.S. vehicle Artillery One has terminated the bailout of Swiss blockchain payments firm Monetas AG, according to swissinfo.ch. Artilley One noted it is also suing Monetas' founder, Johann Gevers for failing to transfer his majority stake in the company, when the U.S. firm acquired it in late January. However, Gevers denied the allegations and claimed that he was not paid the full amount for the stake.

FRANCE AND BENELUX

* French insurer Axa completed the acquisition of U.S.-based digital health benefit administration company Maestro Health Inc.

* Crowdfunding platforms in France have asked financial regulator AMF to relax regulations for them to be able to support companies up to €8 million, Les Echos reported. The initial ceiling was set at €1 million in 2014, then raised to €2.5 million in 2016.

* Belgium-based Dexia SA reported full-year 2017 net loss group share of €462 million, compared to a net income group share of €353 million a year earlier.

* Pension funds in the Netherlands have been reprimanded by the Dutch central bank for failing to take control of risks arising from their outsourced capital, Het Financieele Dagblad reported.

* Rabobank is testing an integrated cryptocurrency wallet called Rabobit, which is designed to give customers a complete overview of their bitcoin assets, Het Financieele Dagblad reported.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

* Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA unveiled its new climate change strategy, promising to mobilize €100 billion in green finance, sustainable infrastructures, social entrepreneurship and financial inclusion through 2025.

ITALY AND GREECE

* BPER Banca SpA started the process of securitizing a roughly €2 billion tranche of nonperforming loans, in a bid to improve asset quality and lower bad-loan exposures. The Italian lender said the senior tranche of the securitization may be backstopped by Italy's Garanzia Cartolarizzazione Sofferenze scheme, or GACS.

* Fabrizio Pagani, a top Italian Treasury official, said Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA could take part in banking sector consolidation under the right conditions, Reuters reported.

* Lindorff Intrum Justitia could seek a co-investor for the purchase of a 51% stake of the bad loan management platform of Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, MF said, noting that the Swedish group, which is in exclusive negotiations with the Italian lender, intends to make its final offer for the platform in the second half of March.

* Credito Valtellinese SpA is proposing 170 job cuts facilitated by early retirement incentives as it seeks to bring its cost-income ratio to 57.5% by 2020, MF said.

* Credito Emiliano SpA has appointed Gianluca Rondini, who has been with the bank since 1990, to head its private banking business, said MF.

* The Italian antitrust authority is investigating the Italian businesses of Generali, Allianz Group and Zurich Insurance Group AG over clauses in accident and healthcare policies issued in Italy limiting the rights of heirs, Il Sole 24 Ore said.

NORDIC COUNTRIES

* Norway's central bank called on the Norwegian government to extend mortgages restrictions that were imposed in early 2017, while restrictive measures on the country's capital should be removed, as recommended by the local Financial Supervisory Authority, Reuters wrote.

EASTERN EUROPE

* Mikhail Sukhov, JSC VTB Bank's management board deputy chairman overseeing risks associated with the introduction of Basel III rules and tax policy issues, will step down from the post March 1, Kommersant reported.

* The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected a $750 million lawsuit of PPF Management LLC against PAO Sberbank of Russia, its CEO Herman Gref and a number of other persons over an alleged takeover of crushed granite producer Pavlovskgranit, Vedomosti wrote.

* Russian insurance companies collected more than 1.2 trillion Russian rubles in premiums in 2017, up by 8.3% year over year, Vedomosti reported. Russian analysts believe that the local insurance sector is in stagnation, with life insurance being the only growth driver.

* Russia's Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Area announced an auction to sell a 100% stake in OJSC State Insurance Co. Yugoria, Vedomosti said. The auction will be held May 30, and the minimum price for the company was set at 2.89 billion Russian rubles.

* The management board of mBank SA will recommend a dividend payment of 5.15 Polish zlotys per share in respect of 2017 net profit, Rzeczpospolita reported, noting that it will be the lender's first dividend payment since 2014.

* The Hungarian banking sector saw its aggregated after-tax profit growing to 632 billion Hungarian forints in 2017 from 423 billion forints in 2016, Reuters reported, citing preliminary data from the country's central bank.

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

Asia-Pacific: Resona to buy back ¥101.6B of shares; 2 Indian firms may launch IPOs in March

Middle East & Africa: Afreximbank eyes triple African listing; Hapoalim ups provision for US tax case

Latin America: Q4 profits rise for BTG, Sul América; Itaú CorpBanca posts net loss

North America: Goldman Sachs targets middle class with new products; Ocwen buying PHH for $360M

North America Insurance: Alphabet unit in talks for insurance push; commercial insurance prices rise

NOW FEATURED ON S&P GLOBAL MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Data Dispatch EMEA: Qatari banks face higher costs as diplomatic crisis looks to drag on: The gulf state's banks have largely shrugged off liquidity concerns sparked by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition's embargo against Qatar, but they face higher funding and risk costs as the feud continues, analysts told S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Man Group bounced back in 2017, but February market shock tempers enthusiasm: The London-listed hedge fund manager recorded a 35% rise in funds under management in 2017, but some of its strategies struggled in the early February market correction, and investors marked down its shares in Feb. 28 trading.

Personal injury reforms will slash UK motor insurance rates, says Admiral CEO: Along with its 2017 results, Admiral also announced that it is planning to establish an insurance company and a broker in Spain so it can continue to serve its European customers if the U.K. loses its access to the single market.

JLT bosses defend restructuring plan as share price falls: "We need to be positioned to take advantage of the opportunity of growth we see in front of us," the British insurance broker's CEO, Dominic Burke, told analysts during an earnings call.

Erste Group seeks growth via new digital platform, not M&A: While the Austrian lender may contemplate entering new markets in the near future, it will seek to do so via its new digital platform, dubbed George, the bank's CEO and CFO told analysts during an earnings call.

Sberbank to expand mortgages and credit cards after posting record FY profit: Sberbank will seek to expand "faster than the market" in those highly competitive segments, CFO Alexander Morozov told analysts during a Feb. 28 earnings call.

German bank warns of 'irrational exuberance' around eurozone deposit insurance: Europe should not push for a mutual deposit guarantee scheme for eurozone banks before they have cleared most nonperforming loans from their balance sheets, the CEO of Germany's DZ Bank AG has warned.

Sheryl Obejera, Ed Meza, Meike Wijers, Gerard O'Dwyer, Beata Fojcik, Heather O'Brian, Stephanie Salti, Praxilla Trabattoni and Mariana Aldano contributed to this report.

The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. London time. Some external links may require a subscription.