NAB eyes HNW expansion with global banking buy

On Monday, the bank confirmed it would acquire Citi’s consumer banking business, including its wealth arm with $2.5 billion in assets under management, for a total equity consideration of $1.2 billion.

NAB said the acquisition of Citi’s private wealth management division in addition to its home lending portfolio, unsecured lending business and retail deposits business would fit strategically with its decision to sell MLC to IOOF earlier this year and retain high-net-worth advice business JBWere.

“NAB has recently completed the sale of its MLC Wealth business to IOOF, with its retained wealth businesses focused on servicing the high net worth and self-directed segments through its private wealth division,” the bank said.

“NAB will review opportunities to extend its private wealth offer to Citigroup’s clients and potentially utilise relevant services offered by Citigroup to enhance its current product and service offering.”

The bank said Citi had around 4,000 “long tenured” clients within its wealth management division.

“There’s a focus on specialist wealth products for sophisticated investors, so we will be undertaking detailed work to identify the opportunities there to integrate the business into JBWere and our private bank,” NAB group executive of consumer banking Rachel Slade told an investor call.

NAB chief executive Ross McEwan said the primary attraction for the purchase was Citi’s strength in the credit card space, which would give the bank a stronghold as competition heats up following US platform Square’s acquisition of Afterpay last week.

“The proposed acquisition of the Citigroup consumer business brings scale and deep expertise in unsecured lending, particularly credit cards, which continue to be an important way for customers to make payments and manage their cashflows,” Mr McEwan said.

“The cards and payments sector is rapidly evolving and access to a greater share of payments and transaction data will help drive product and service innovation across our personal banking business and deliver market leading customer experiences.”

The transaction is expected to complete in March 2022 subject to regulatory approvals, with the bank to pay cash for the net assets of the Citigroup consumer business plus a premium of $250 million.