RBS ‘close to selling $600m of shipping loans’

Royal Bank of Scotland is close to selling at least $600 million (£486 million) worth of shipping loans from its portfolio, according to a Reuters report citing two sources.

The potential buyers of the shipping loan tranches include Orix Corp, Berenberg Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Davidson Kempner, the report said.

The loans would come from RBS’s Greek shipping business which was valued at $3 billion earlier this year.

RBS’s total exposure to shipping was about £5.5 billion at the end of September, down from £6.7 billion at the end of 2015.

RBS was previously a leading lender to the global shipping industry.