Standard CharteredPlc plans to sell around US$4.4 billion of assets in Asia, includingUS$1.4 billion of stressed loans in India, Bloomberg News reported April 11, citing"people with knowledge of the matter."

The stressed Indian assets consist of U.S. dollar and rupee-denominatedloans made to Indian companies, mostly from the infrastructure and power sector.The other US$3 billion assets in Asia consist of loans, proprietary bonds and equityinvestments in China, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The bank has already sold around US$1 billion of low-yieldingassets in India in 2015, according to one of the sources. It sought to sell anotherUS$1.5 billion of non-stressed loans in India but nixed the plan after gauging interestin the assets. It may also sell just part of the entire distressed assets in India,depending on market conditions.

Hong Kong's SSG Capital Management is said to be interested inStandard Chartered's Indian assets, while KKR & Co. could revive talks withthe bank with regard to the Indian assets.

Further, the bank may sell part of its portfolio in Africa andthe Middle East, the sources said.

KKR and SSG Capital declined to comment on requests from Bloomberg.

The news comes amid the bank's effort to pare down its balance sheet.