Standard Bank agrees to sell USD 350 million loan of Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ South Africa's Standard Bank Group has agreed to sell its Asian loan portfolio worth around one billion USD that includes the Mongolian portion of the portfolio. The buyer of the loans, which include financing of mining projects in Mongolia, Indonesia and other countries, is BNP Paribas, a French bank and financial services company with headquarters in Paris and a second global headquarters in London. BNP Paribas has agreed to pay around face value for the Mongolian portion of the portfolio, which represents loan worth 350 million USD. Johannesburg-based Standard Bank, which is about twenty percent owned by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, has been hiving off businesses outside of Africa to focus on building its presence in fast-growing sub-Saharan markets.