Standard Chartered to sell off assets in Asia

Standard Chartered is seeking to sell at least $4.4 billion of assets in Asia, people with knowledge of the matter said, as the lender pares its balance sheet after booking record impairments.

The London-based bank is speaking with potential buyers for about $1.4 billion of stressed loans made to Indian firms including GMR Infrastructure Ltd., according to the people, who asked not to be named as the information is private.

Standard Chartered has also started a sale of around $3 billion of assets in the rest of Asia, one of the people said. Those assets include loans as well as proprietary bond and equity investments in China, Indonesia and Malaysia, another person said.

Chief executive Bill Winters has pledged to review all of Standard Chartered's business lines and customer relationships, ranking their risk and returns, with the aim of restructuring or jettisoning about $100 billion of assets.

In February, the bank posted its first annual loss since 1989 as revenue fell and loan impairments nearly doubled to the highest in its history.