Westpac Bank may divest Asgard Wealth Solutions should its merger with St George Bank pass, Macquarie Private Wealth (MPW) has cited in its analysis.
Asgard was acquired by St George in 1997 and is the owner of AdviserNetgain, eWrap and Elements which are used by over 5000 financial planners.
“We are partaking discussions [for our analysis] with Westpac on what their intentions are in that respect, but they already have a Bankers Trust platform,” MPW division director Martin Lakos told InvestorDaily.
“Now maybe they can amalgamate that [and Asgard] into two, but it also may well be that [Asgard] is a valuable asset that they could sell.
“A group like AMP or ANZ might be interested in Asgard.”
Lakos added that combining Westpac-owned BT’s software with that of St.George dealer group Securitor’s would be very hard.
“It’s not totally impossible, but at the end of the day merging platforms can be very difficult,” he said.
Selling Asgard along with other assets may provide St George’s shareholders with $250 million to $560 million in added value,” Lakos said.
“If you had that plus the potential of some asset sales which may include Asgard, the additional value released could be another 50c or $1 in share price terms for St George,” he said.
Lakos declined to comment when asked if Macquarie would be interested in buying Asgard.
AMP and ANZ Banking Group also declined to comment.
St George agreed to an $18.6 billion all-stock merger proposal from Westpac to create Australia’s largest bank by value. The deal would also create the industry’s third biggest dealer group with 1124 planners and 648 practices, based on data from the latest IFA Dealer Group Survey.
