Lloyds offloads foreign wealth wing for £100m

Lloyds Banking Group is selling its loss-making international private banking business to Switzerland’s Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) for £100 million.

The business, which has assets under management of about £7.2 billion, reported a loss of £50m in 2012. The sale includes Lloyds’ Geneva-based Private Bank, its branches based in 
Geneva, Gibraltar, Monaco and Zurich, as well as its representative office in Montevideo.

The bank said the sale was evidence of the progress it is making in slimming down and simplifying its business following its ill-fated takeover of HBOS and subsequent UK government bailout.

It will receive £65m up front and the remainder is dependent on certain targets being met in the two years after the deal completes.

An agency office in Miami is excluded from the sale but the bank will be closing another private banking business based in Dubai as part of the terms of the agreement.

In a separate move, Lloyds said it had decided, in principle, to withdraw its presence in South Africa.