National Australia Bank may be contemplating the sale and lease back of one or more of the investment platforms of Axa Asia Pacific, should it overcome ACCC objections and succeed in buying Axa AP,
The Australian reported.
NAB, through its MLC head, Steve Trucker, wrote to financial planners late yesterday to deny a report in the Sydney Morning Herald that the bank planned to sell its recently acquired Navigator platform.
Selling one platform or another from its expanded wealth business, however, is one option being canvassed by NAB in order to address the refusal of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to clear the bank's planned purchase of the Australasian businesses of Axa AP.
According to the report in The Australian, "NAB could offer to sell the APH platform and then lease back the asset to keep the customers and investors."
Axa operates three older investment platforms (Summit, Generations and iAccess) and one newer and more robust platform known as North. It is the competitive potential of the North platform that underpins the ACCC's reasons for blocking the takeover.