News blog

W&G Investments

• BY: Andrew Hore |
• POSTED: 14/08/2013 |

W&G Investments is raising £15m at 100p a share but it will need to raise a further £1bn if it takes over banking assets from Royal Bank of Scotland. 

Santander was going to pay £1.65bn for the assets on offer but the deal fell through. They include more than 300 branches, 1.7m retail customers, £20bn of deposits and loans, and 230,000 small business clients. The cost is still likely to be around £1.5bn.

Rival bidders for the assets are a vehicle backed by private equity firms Corsair Capital and Centerbridge, and one headed by AnaCap Financial Partners, which is collaborating with US private equity firm Blackstone.

The company has been called W&G Investments as a nod to RBS’s old Williams & Glyn banking brand, which could be revived. Former Tesco finance director Andrew Higginson is chairman. Former Williams & Glyn’s boss John McGuire and ex-Tesco Bank executive Shaun Doherty are also on the board

The date of admission has been moved by one week to 20 August. After the flotation W&G will complete initial due diligence into the potential acquisition. The company then hopes to negotiate to acquire the assets.

If a deal is agreed then W&G will raise money from a placing and move to a standard listing. If no deal is agreed then any remaining cash will be returned to shareholders.

Download the latest AIM Journal from http://www.hubinvest.com/AIMPDFAugust2013_47.pdf