PineBridge Cap in race for Indian portfolios of CitiFin

Global asset management company PineBridge Capital has evinced interest in buying the home loan, insurance and financial services portfolios of CitiFinancial Consumer Finance India, which is the retail lending unit of Citigroup. PineBridge Capital is owned by Richard Li, son of Hong Kong-based business tycoon and Hutchison Whampoa chairman Li Ka-shing.

After being bailed out by the US government during the 2008 credit crisis, Citigroup had reorganised its businesses and transferred non-core businesses like consumer finance, asset management and retail brokerage to Citi Holding, which it wanted to sell. However, since the progress on that front is slow, it is looking at selling the assets of CitiFinancial India separately.

Sources said PineBridge is not interested in buying the personal loan and loan-against-property portfolios of CitiFinancial due to their high delinquency rate. It is only interested in buying its assets, which are worth R2,000 crore. Another player in the running is the Singapore-based DBS, but it has shown interest in only one asset.

While PineBridge Capital refused to comment on the story, a DBS spokesperson said, ?We do not comment on market speculation.?

PineBridge, which was founded in 1993, is a private investment group with interests in infrastructure, property and other investments mainly in Asia-Pacific. As on March 31, PineBridge managed assets worth $80.9 billion across a platform of listed equity, fixed income, private equity and hedge fund strategies.

Industry sources said it is pretty lucrative for PineBridge to grab a decent slice of financial services in India through this acquisition to start with.

At present, the company owns a small mutual fund business in India that it acquired from AIG as a follow-up to its acquisition of AIG?s global asset management business after the 2008 meltdown.

Li Ka Shing had a lucrative business in India with majority stakes in Hutch-Essar, which it sold to Vodafone Plc in February 2007 for $11.1 billion. It had held the stake through Hutchison Telecommunications India.