French banking major Societe Generale is set to divest its leasing business, called SG Finans, in the Nordic region.
SG Finans offers loans to buy equipment solutions in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The unit has a team of 358 staff.
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Two sources familiar with the development told Reuters that the disposal forms part of the banking group’s plan to sell non-strategic operations. According to the publication, the concerned unit has been failing to generate enough synergies.
The move to divest non-strategic businesses is said to enable the French bank to strengthen its common equity tier one ratio by 80-90 basis points.
Bank of America has been hired to manage the latest sale, one of the sources told the publication.
At the end of 2018, SG Finans had NOK38.3bn ($4.19bn) in assets. The unit’s pre-tax profit decreased to NOK738m ($80.34m) in 2018 compared to NOK853m ($93.58m) in the previous year.
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By GlobalDataTo cope up with the negative interest environment, Societe Generale is also planning to offload a non-performing loan portfolio associated with small and mid-sized companies; two sources told the news agency.
Earlier, the French lender signed agreements to sell its businesses in Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria, all to Hungarian lender OTP Bank.
This April, Societe Generale announced around 1,600 lay-offs after recording poor performance.
