Ansbacher Bahamas, the downtown offshore bank and trust many Bahamians recall as BITCO, is up for sale by its South African owners, FirstRand Banking Group. But company officials say it will be business as usual for the 60 local employees.
"We are trying to find the best solution for all the banks in our group," Ansbacher CEO Richard Spilg, 46, told The Guardian Thursday.
"This operation has been an important part of this community for some 50 years and it is a big deposit-taker for us. We like it here.
"We have been reshaping the business over the past couple of years to meet increased compliance demands, but the Bahamas remains one of our key offices with over $2 billion in assets under management as well as $200 million in balance sheet assets."
Besides the Bahamas, the Ansbacher Group operates in the Cayman Islands, Monaco, the Channel Islands, London and Zurich. It recently sold its British Virgin Islands office to Trident Trust Company.
The BVI office dealt mostly with company registrations, which is a volume business. But Mr. Spilg said Ansbacher wanted to concentrate on its more lucrative relationship-building activities with high net-worth private clients.
He described Ansbacher as a mid-sized offshore group that was looking to expand into new markets in the western hemisphere, the Middle East and Asia.
"We want a partner in the international wealth-management industry to help us achieve scale," he said, "but we have no preconceptions and we are just starting to look."
According to FirstRand chief executive Laurie Dippenaar, Ansbacher is no longer key to the South African group's business plans: "They were planning aggressive expansion strategies and we didn't see that we could add as much value as an offshore player can," he was reported as saying.
A company press statement said the group recognised the need to "fully protect the interests of depositors and clients and to keep all appropriate regulators fully informed."
It said FirstRand's interests in Ansbacher Investment Services, Ansbacher Alternative Investments, Ansbacher MultiManagers and Ansbacher Trade Finance Services are excluded from the sale offer.
"These businesses currently operate as divisions within the Ansbacher Group and will be transferred to separate entities for which appropriate regulatory frameworks will be put in place," the statement said.
Ansbacher began life as a London merchant bank in 1894 and acquired interests in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands in 1989. First National Bank of South Africa bought the Ansbacher Group in 1993 and then merged with Rand Merchant Bank in 1998 to form FirstRand.
The FirstRand Banking Group is one of the largest financial services groups in southern Africa, with $45 billion of assets under management.
Ansbacher Bahamas was formerly known as Bahamas International Trust Company (BITCO), which was established in 1957,the second oldest bank and trust in the country. BITCO was owned by a consortium of banks, with Barclays as the majority shareholder.
Ansbacher Bahamas provides private banking, trust and investment services to clients from around the world.
By Larry Smith – The Nassau Guardian
