SANTANDER has again pulled out of the running to buy Royal Bank of Scotland’s Williams & Glyn unit.
The Spanish Bank, which is understood to have approached RBS about acquiring the 300-plus branch network in August, has withdrawn its interest because a deal could not be reached on price, according to a report in the Financial Times.
It is the second time Santander has walked away from a deal to acquire the branches.
And it is a further blow for state-owned RBS in its attempts to offload the branches, which was ordered by the European Union as a condition of its £45 billion bailout by UK taxpayers in 2008.
RBS, which faces a deadline of 2017 to sell the branches, announced in August that it had scrapped plans to launch Williams & Glyn as a standalone bank, citing the complication and costs involved in cloning its banking platform to support the launch. It said then that it was pursuing a trade sale of the unit, confirming that it had held talks with a range of interested parties.
Clydesdale & Yorkshire Banking Group was mentioned in last night’s report as a potential bidder.
RBS, led by chief executive Ross McEwan, declined to comment on the report.
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