CBA confirms its in advanced talks to sell funds unit
(Reuters) - Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX) confirmed on Wednesday that it is in advanced talks with a party over the sale of its investment management business.
Australia's largest lender had unveiled a plan in April this year to list Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFSGAM).
In an email response to Reuters, CBA noted media reports in the Australian Financial Review which cited Japan's Nikkei newspaper that Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is set to buy CBA's asset management operations for about 300 billion yen (£2.09 billion).
The report said a unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, one of Japan's largest lenders, will buy several core units of Colonial First State, CBA's asset management group.
MUFG was not immediately available for comment outside regular market hours.
The deal is likely to close by the fall of 2019, Nikkei reported.
Revelations of widespread malfeasance from a months-long quasi-judicial inquiry into Australia's financial sector has put the country's largest financial institutions under unprecedented scrutiny, forcing banks to streamline their operations to focus on core lending activities.
(Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva, William Maclean)
