Published on ShanghaiDaily.com (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/)
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200806/20080623/article_364188.htm
UK bank considers bid for Dresdner
Created: 2008-6-23
Author:Ben Livesey
LLOYDS TSB Group Plc, Britain's biggest provider of checking accounts, may bid for Allianz SE's Dresdner Bank to reduce dependence on the UK, where growth is slowing, two people familiar with the matter said.
Chief Executive Officer Eric Daniels said in February that London-based Lloyds TSB is considering acquisition "opportunities." Dresdner would add about 900 branches in Germany to the 2,000 outlets Lloyds TSB has in Britain. Dresdner's consumer and commercial banking units are valued at about 7.9 billion euros (US$12.3 billion), analysts at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc estimated in April.
"The German retail financial services market might be logical," said Derek Chambers, a London-based analyst at Standard & Poor's Equity Research. "It is a large, mature and sophisticated market" and Lloyds TSB is "good on cost discipline," he said.
Allianz CEO Michael Diekmann told shareholders last month the Munich-based company is in talks that may lead to a sale of Dresdner. Europe's biggest insurer, hurt by more than 3 billion euros of credit market writedowns at Dresdner in the past year, has said it plans to split its Dresdner Kleinwort investment bank from the rest of the company by the end of August, Bloomberg News reported.
Overseas buys
Lloyds TSB, which has reported three straight years of earnings growth by selling international assets and focusing on its home market, is weighing overseas acquisitions as the UK economy slows amid the biggest slide in the housing market since the early 1990s.
Banco Santander SA, Spain's biggest bank, and Germany's Commerzbank AG also are interested in Dresdner, Der Spiegel reported last week.
Besides Dresdner, Lloyds TSB may be keen in buying Citigroup Inc's German consumer banking subsidiary or Deutsche Postbank AG, Germany's biggest consumer bank by clients, the people said. Citigroup, reeling from losses on subprime-infected assets, is mulling a sale of its Dusseldorf-based unit as CEO Vikram Pandit disposes of US$400 billion of assets to shore up capital.
The sale of the Citigroup division, Dresdner and Deutsche Postbank would help competitors to gain a bigger slice of the German market.
Chief Executive Officer Eric Daniels said in February that London-based Lloyds TSB is considering acquisition "opportunities." Dresdner would add about 900 branches in Germany to the 2,000 outlets Lloyds TSB has in Britain. Dresdner's consumer and commercial banking units are valued at about 7.9 billion euros (US$12.3 billion), analysts at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc estimated in April.
"The German retail financial services market might be logical," said Derek Chambers, a London-based analyst at Standard & Poor's Equity Research. "It is a large, mature and sophisticated market" and Lloyds TSB is "good on cost discipline," he said.
Allianz CEO Michael Diekmann told shareholders last month the Munich-based company is in talks that may lead to a sale of Dresdner. Europe's biggest insurer, hurt by more than 3 billion euros of credit market writedowns at Dresdner in the past year, has said it plans to split its Dresdner Kleinwort investment bank from the rest of the company by the end of August, Bloomberg News reported.
Overseas buys
Lloyds TSB, which has reported three straight years of earnings growth by selling international assets and focusing on its home market, is weighing overseas acquisitions as the UK economy slows amid the biggest slide in the housing market since the early 1990s.
Banco Santander SA, Spain's biggest bank, and Germany's Commerzbank AG also are interested in Dresdner, Der Spiegel reported last week.
Besides Dresdner, Lloyds TSB may be keen in buying Citigroup Inc's German consumer banking subsidiary or Deutsche Postbank AG, Germany's biggest consumer bank by clients, the people said. Citigroup, reeling from losses on subprime-infected assets, is mulling a sale of its Dusseldorf-based unit as CEO Vikram Pandit disposes of US$400 billion of assets to shore up capital.
The sale of the Citigroup division, Dresdner and Deutsche Postbank would help competitors to gain a bigger slice of the German market.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House