Just a day after announcing that it would sell its asset management business in Mexico, Bank of America Corp. said it is in talks to sell its banking operations in Argentina.
The $1.2 trillion-asset Charlotte company said Friday that it is considering selling BankBoston Argentina to a group led by Standard Bank Group Ltd. of Johannesburg and two Argentine families. The terms are still being negotiated, but B of A said it expects to set them this year.
On Thursday, B of A said that Grupo Financiero Santander Serfin, a unit of Grupo Santander in Madrid, would acquire its asset management business in Mexico. That deal is expected to close next quarter; B of A did not say how much it would pay.
It said it decided to sell the asset management operation after determining that it lacked "sufficient synergies" with its cash management and corporate and investment banking operations in Mexico.
A B of A spokesman said the two announcements were unrelated.
Frank Barkocy, the director of research at Keefe Managers LLC, a fund manager that focuses on banking, said the decision to consider selling BankBoston Argentina is a reversal for B of A and could indicate that it is open to selling other businesses in Latin America.
"It seemed like they were inclined to keep those operations and stabilize them," but political instability in Latin America might have made it willing to sell the unit, he said.
B of A inherited both operations in last year's acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp. On Friday it said that the negotiations for its Argentine bank do not include its operations in other Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay.
BankBoston Argentina has 89 branches in that country and is one of the 10 largest banks there, B of A said in the press release announcing the negotiations. A spokesman said he would not discuss the bank's size.
B of A has about $1.8 billion of assets under management in Mexico, including wealth management and mutual fund operations.
