Royal Bank of Scotland has narrowed the bidders for its commodities trading joint venture to three and will announce a winner within weeks, the Sunday Times reported, citing sources close to the negotiations.
U.S bank J. P Morgan, Australia's Macquarie and Deutsche Bank are competing to buy the 51 percent stake in RBS Sempra Commodities, which could fetch an estimated 2.5 billion pounds ($4 billion), the newspaper said. RBS - majority owned by the UK government - is being forced to sell the stake by European competition authorities due to the bailouts it has been given by Britain.