LGT Completes Acquisition Of ABN AMRO's Asian Private Bank

Tom Burroughes

1 May 2017

Liechtenstein-headquartered yesterday announced it had completed the acquisition of ABN AMRO’s private banking business in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai, part of a process of merger and acquisition activity in the Asian region.

The deal – as originally announced in December last year, means that LGT’s assets under management have grown to about $50 billion in Asia (including Middle East) and around $180 billion overall as per the end of April 2017, LGT said in a statement.
LGT, as at 31 December 2016, managed around SFr152.1 billion ($149.7 billion) for in assets for wealthy private individuals and institutional clients.

The M&A deal represented the latest in a string of such deals affecting European banks in Asia. Despite Royal Bank of Canada recently ensuring it “remains committed to the region”, Canada's largest lender has, in fact, undertaken a review of its Asian wealth operations (see here). Barclays has sold its private banks in Singapore and Hong Kong; Societe Generale has sold its Asian private banks, and ANZ has sold Asian retail and wealth management operations.

Late last year, this publication carried an editorial reflecting on the dynamics of why a number of non-domestic Asian private banks are being sold. (See here.)