Planning to contribute certain part of the total offering, the Church Commissioners has joined hands with a consortium led by private equity firms Corsair Capital and Centerbridge Partners that is bidding for the branches.
Seeking to purchase a major stake in the branches ahead of an initial public offering, the consortium is competing with two other rival groups, including Foreign & Colonial, Schroders and Threadneedle Investments.
It is expected that the bids for the branches will be approximately £1bn.
All the parties are performing due diligence on the branches and it is likely that the 80% UK’s government owned bank will choose a preferred bidder by the end of July.
The UK-based lender has been ordered by the European Commission in 2009 to divest its unprofitable operations, as part of the terms of £45.5bn government bailout package it received during the financial crisis of 2008.
RBS previous attempt to dispose of the branches to Spain’s Banco Santander initially valued at £1.65bn fell apart in October 2012.
