Whether ANZ is the only serious bidder left for the unwanted Asian banking assets of Royal Bank of Scotland is hard to work out. A range of international media reports over the last 12 hours is split on who is and who is not bidding for which former ABN Amro assets in the region.
The Hindustan Times, through its website
Live Mint, reported that Standard Chartered Bank decided against submitting a bid for the Asian assets of RBS, citing the bad asset quality of the RBS book.
"We have not submitted a bid for the Royal Bank of Scotland assets in Asia. After due diligence, we found that the quality of assets is bad," said a senior official with Standard Chartered and quoted on Live Mint.
The business website, however, quoted an enigmatic response from an RBS spokesperson in an email response: "We are well advanced with the sale process; however, due to the confidentiality of this process we cannot comment on the transaction."
At one stage
Reuters reported that Standard Chartered and HSBC did not submit bids, but updated this report to make clear that the two banks did not bid for all assets.
Dow Jones reported that Standard Chartered was still in talks will all parties.
Yet at one stage Dow also reported that HSBC hadn't submitted a bid for the businesses in Asia that RBS has put up for sale.
The Daily Telegraph, in London, reported that interest from suitors other than ANZ may have cooled ahead of last Thursday's deadline, leaving ANZ, which made a non-binding offer, in the driving seat.
Of the punditry in Australian newspapers, the
Sydney Morning Herald speculated that ANZ would commit about $1.4 billion in capital to its offer for RBS banking assets in Asia.
The SMH reported ANZ was believed to be interested in picking up the RBS businesses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Herald Sun reported that ANZ was in the box seat to acquire RBS's Hong Kong network, which has 45 branches.
The Financial Review in its Street Talk column reported that ANZ was looking closely at the RBS/ABN businesses in Hong Kong and Singapore.