Deutsche Bank is preparing to sell its global custody business for around €1.5 billion in the coming weeks, business daily Handelsblattreported today.
ABN Amro Mellon Securities is tipped to be the most likely to candidate to buy the business, but State Street Bank and the Bank of New York are also in the running, the newspaper said.
Global custodians offer a centralised service for administering all cross-border investments, maintaining and servicing the investment portfolio on behalf of investors, processing and settling cross-border securities transactions, recovering interest and dividend payments and dealing with tax issues.
New Deutsche Bank chairman Mr Josef Ackermann no longer views global custody as a core area of business and the divestment of the activity was set to be annnounced in the coming weeks, Handelsblattsaid.
But the €1.5-billion price was well below the usual value of such transactions, with some analysts putting the standard price around €5.2 billion.
AFP
