RBC Said to Hire JPMorgan to Help Sell Swiss Banking Business

(Bloomberg) — Royal Bank of Canada, the nation’s second- largest lender by assets, hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help sell its Swiss banking operations, a person familiar with the process said.

Royal Bank said in November it was reviewing its private- banking and wealth-management businesses in Switzerland. The disclosure came after the Toronto-based bank said it was exiting wealth management in the Caribbean and closing some international advisory and private-banking groups in the U.S. and Canada.

Royal Bank of Canada (Suisse) SA had total assets of about 2.02 billion Swiss francs ($2 billion) and retained earnings of about 23.7 million Swiss francs in fiscal 2013, according to regulatory filings.

“We have no updates or comments regarding the review of our RBC Suisse business beyond what was stated when the realignment was first announced in November,” Claire Holland, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement.

The hiring of JPMorgan was reported earlier today by the Wall Street Journal. JPMorgan had no immediate comment.

Royal Bank has said its RBC Wealth Management unit seeks to focus more on serving wealthy clients in priority markets including Canada, the U.S., the British Isles and Asia — regions where the division can build on the bank’s other existing businesses.

To contact the reporter on this story: Doug Alexander in Toronto at [e-mail] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Eichenbaum at [e-mail]; David Scanlan at [e-mail] Steve Dickson