Malaysia’s CIMB Group Holdings said Monday it had bought some of the Asian assets of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for RM849.4 million (US$278.4 million).

Malaysia’s number two lender said the purchase will allow it to set up new investment banking units in Taiwan and Australia and expand its business in Hong Kong, India and China.

“This is an excellent opportunity to complete the build-up of our capabilities in Asia Pacific markets, and to do it quicker and less expensively than if we grew organically,” Nazir Razak, CIMB’s group chief executive, said in a statement.

CIMB said the deal will make CIMB the largest investment banking franchise based in Asia Pacific, excluding Japan.

The firm said it will look to set up new operations in South Korea soon and expects to employ about 350-400 staff from RBS.

CIMB Group is Malaysia’s second largest financial services provider and one of Asean’s leading universal banking groups.

The sale to CIMB comes after the Edinburgh-based lender in February revealed that net losses ballooned to almost £2.0 billion (US$3.2 billion) in 2011 owing to the Greek debt crisis, restructuring costs and compensation linked to insurance mis-selling.

RBS, 82-percent owned by the British government after a massive bailout in 2008, is offloading non-core assets as it seeks to return to profitability.

It had previously agreed to sell its aircraft leasing division to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp for US$7.3 billion.

- AFP