Credit Suisse and a joint venture partner are looking for buyers for their brokerage business in China due to the acquisition of Swiss bank rival UBS, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Said. ,
He said Citigroup had at one point shown interest in acquiring Credit Suisse Securities China (CSS).
Citi, whose chief executive Jane Fraser was in China this week, is setting up a securities brokerage agency in China. One of the sources said it had hoped to accelerate growth through acquisitions, but decided to stick with its original plan to grow the business organically.
Under Chinese securities regulations, the same entity cannot hold two majority-owned broker licenses. UBS holds a 67% stake in Beijing State-owned Asset Management, a profitable securities company.
Credit Suisse owns 51% of loss-making CSS and last year reached an agreement to buy its partner Founder Securities. The operation is yet to be approved by Chinese regulatory authorities.
The sources asked not to be named in view of the sensitivity of the matter.
A spokeswoman for UBS and Credit Suisse and CSS declined to comment. Citi declined to comment.
Founder Securities and the China Securities and Exchange Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters.
UBS is due to announce the closing of its acquisition of Credit Suisse next Monday.
The new group will have much work to do in consolidating the banks’ operations in China, where both have investment banking, wealth management and funds businesses.
The sources also said that Credit Suisse has scrapped plans to build a local bank in China because of potential regulatory conflicts arising from the UBS acquisition.
(Selena Lee (Hong Kong) and Engen Tham (Shanghai). Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Edwina Gibbs, Editing in Spanish by Jose Muñoz)
