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By Ishika Dangayach, 2:27 PM ET
HSBC is likely to announce the sale of its retail banking business in France to private equity firm Cerberus on Friday.
This will bring an end to a more than 18-month-long sales process for the HSBC unit. The bank's gross risk-weighted assets are expected to be reduced by more than $100 billion.
An HSBC spokeswoman acknowledged that a meeting with labor unions was set on Friday to discuss retail banking operations, Bloomberg reported.
HSBC has previously declared plans to quit the retail and small business banking markets in the United States.
The UK lender is concentrating on its operations in Asia, where it produces the majority of its earnings, and relocating senior executives for important divisions from London to Hong Kong.
Approximately 3,900 employees work for HSBC's French retail business. In France, the institution has also reduced its workforce in other sectors, laying off a third of its approximately 700 investment-banking employees last year, including virtually all of its Paris-based bankers who work on structured derivatives products.
Last year, it also terminated connections with over 40 corporate clients and announced cutbacks to its commercial banking, central, and information technology businesses.
In October 2020, the London-based lender stated that it was continuing its strategic assessment of its retail banking business in France.
The bank, which began preparing to sell its underperforming France business in September 2019, has been unable to find a buyer. Lenders like Societe Generale SA and La Banque Postale SA, expressed interest before withdrawing while Anacap, a buyout company, also exited the process early this year.
HSBC was advised by Lazard on the transaction.
With inputs from Bloomberg