Barclays Bank Plans to Buy Standard Life plc's Bank for 226 Million Pounds

Barclays Bank plans to buy U.K.-based Standard Life plc's bank for 226 million pounds (245.9 million euros) cash.

Under the deal to acquire Standard Life Bank, Barclays said it will acquire a savings book of about 5.5 billion pounds and a mortgage book with outstanding balances of about 8.8 billion pounds

The acquisition price is based on an estimated tangible net book value of 293 million pounds, depending on changes to Standard Life Bank's tangible net book value at completion, Barclays said.

When the deal is completed, about 270 employees of Standard Life will move to Barclays.

The acquisition of Standard Life Bank "is a good fit with Barclays' existing U.K. retail banking business," said Frits Seegers, chief executive of Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking, in a statement.

Barclays is a global financial services company in the retail and commercial banking business, credit cards, investment banking, wealth management and investment management services. It operates in more than 50 countries throughout Europe, the United States, Africa and Asia.

Citing "volatile market conditions," Standard Life reported an after-tax loss of 20 million pounds for the first six months of 2009, down from a profit of 161 million pounds for the same period in 2008 (BestWire, Aug. 5, 2009).

Standard Life (LSE: SL) is based in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Standard Life provides life assurance and pensions, investment management, banking and health care insurance products to more than 6.5 million customers worldwide.

(By Fran Matso Lysiak, senior associate editor, BestWeek: fran.lysiak@ambest.com)

Related terms: acquisition, africa, asia, bank, banking, book, business, commercial, europe, financial services, health, insurance, investment, investment banking, market, mortgage, products, profit, retail