Strategy & Practice Management

EFG completes BSI integration in Asia, seeks lower price

EFG has announced that it has completely integrated BSI in Asia.

The final piece was BSI in Hong Kong, which was fully integrated into EFG in March 2017. 

“The integration of BSI in Singapore was completed in November 2016, so the integration in Asia, one of the combined bank’s key region’s is now complete,” EFG said in a statement.

The integration of BSI’s Swiss business is expected to take place in April, and the remaining BSI entities are also expected to be integrated in the second quarter of 2017, earlier than anticipated. 

As a final step, the migration of BSI to EFG’s IT platform is due to be completed by end-2017.

However, EFG has said it is negotiating a downward revision in the final purchase price for BSI.

The original sale agreement between EFG and BTG Pactual had noted that the final valuation of the assets and liabilities and other price adjustments is yet to be determined and that the process has not been completed.

“EFG submitted a formal valuation to BTG on 2 February 2017, upon which it expects a downward price adjustment of CHF 277.5 million (USD277.8 million) against the estimated purchase price of CHF 1,060 million announced on 1 November 2016. EFG’s valuation is subject to BTG’s expected objection and, if necessary, verification by an independent expert as required under the SPA, which could lead to a change of the purchase price adjustment,” it said in its statement.

Meanwhile, in terms of performance in Asia, stand-alone net new assets for EFG were down CHF0.5 billion in 2016, compared with CHF2.4 billion in inflows the previous year. 

Overall, EFG stand-alone revenue-generating AUM was CHF82.2 billion at end-2016, versus CHF83.3 billion at end-2015.