Egypt's Orascom is interested in purchasing RBS’s Pakistan unit

According to RBS, Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holdings and Rojhan Capital are interested in acquiring RBS’s Pakistan unit.

As it is known from RBS’s letter to the Karachi Stock Exchange, The State Bank of Pakistan had granted in-principle approval the companies to conduct due diligence. The central bank earlier gave approval to Habib Bank Ltd and MCB Bank Ltd, Pakistan's two largest banks, and Jahangir Siddiqui and Co Ltd to conduct due diligence.

The reason of RBS’s selling of its assets in Asia, including Pakistan is its capital constraints as well as the need to reduce the size of the bank’s balance sheet.

RBS purchased last August in Pakistan Dutch ABN Amro Ltd. Now RBS Pakistan has a loan book of 68 billion rupees ($840 million), deposits of 79 billion rupees and assets of 108 billion rupees.