ANZ eye RBS Asian assets after $2.5 billion capital raising
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ANZ has gone to the market and secured $2.5 billion in the space of 24 hours to support grand plans for securing the key assets from the Royal Bank of Scotland auction of it’s asian banking assets.
ANZ hopes to secure $2.85 billion in all, with a further $350 million to be secured through a share purchase plan. ANZ is competing with HSBC and Standard Chartered for the RPB assets but rumours indicate both failed to submit their bids for the assets by the cut-off date.
This would put ANZ at a strong advantage if the RBS wanted to quickly liquidate their assets. The raising of $2.5 billion was three times oversubscribed and at $14.40 per share, a discount of 7.5% to the stocks last trade of $15.57 before the announcement.
If successful in the bid the ANZ would secure a stronger position in Asia and would be well on the way to developing into the super-regional bank that CEO Mike Smith has been indicating since taking the helm.