Royal Bank of Scotland selling factoring unit to GE Capital

RBS sells German unit to GE Capital

LONDON — Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC said Monday it has agreed to sell RBS Factoring GmbH, a unit that provides loans secured against company invoices, to GE Capital.

Terms of the sale, one of a series of divestments by the government-controlled bank, were not disclosed.

RBS Factoring’s loans are secured against up to 90 percent of the value of a company’s unpaid invoices.

The unit, based in Frankfurt and acquired by the parent company in 2001, had gross assets of approximately euro169 million ($226 million) at the end of last year.

The government controls 84 percent of RBS, Britain’s biggest casualty of the banking crisis.

RBS agreed in November to divest RBS Insurance, Global Merchant Services and its interest in RBS Sempra Commodities as a condition for joining the British government’s asset protection scheme to insure the company against losses on toxic assets. It was also obliged to sell within four years its RBS branch network in England and Wales, and NatWest branches in Scotland.