StanChart may buy Barclays India retail biz: Sources

Barclays has pegged its retail portfolio at Rs 3,250 crore. Sources say Barclays Bank PLC (India) and Barclays Investment and Loan (India) Ltd are also up for sale.

Earlier reports suggested that Barclays India has plans to slash up to 600 positions by March next year as it cuts down on its lending activities.

Sources say Barclays floated an information memorandum in March for Barclays Bank PLC, India branch as well as for Barclays Investment & Loan India Ltd. 

"While this is not written in the information memorandum, Barclays in conference calls has asked prospective bidders to submit bids by July 10. The retail portfolio has been pegged by Barclays at Rs 3,250 crore, though deal watchers anticipate a hefty discount," sources added. 

Happy with the credit card deal, StanChart is keen on Barclays' other India businesses. StanChart had acquired 75% of Barclays' credit card business in December 2011.   

Last July, Barclays had said it was winding up its mid-corporates division here as cross selling of investment banking and normal banking did not develop as expected and would sharpen its focus on serving the needs of large corporates, MNCs and FIs apart from investment banking.

The move also involved revamping its corporate finance business by merging the coverage teams of Barclays Commercial Banking and Barclays Capital under the investment banking arm.

In FY10, Barclays had loss of Rs 550 crore, against a net profit of Rs 30 crore in FY09. As of March 2011, gross NPAs were at Rs 781 crore, which is a major drop from FY10 when its bad loans stood at Rs 1,400 crore. Barclays India has just nine branches and 40 ATMs.

Both StanChart and Barclays refused to comment on a CNBC-TV18 query on the matter calling it a "market speculation".

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With inputs from PTI