Royal Bank of Canada said it would pay $10.1b for HSBC Holdings PLC’s Canadian operations, a move meant to position Canada’s biggest bank to expand during an expected immigration surge. Canada’s government has said it expects to boost immigration to 500,000 people a year by 2025, up from 405,000 last year. The HSBC deal, RBC CEO Dave McKay said, isn’t about acquiring loans or deposits as much as acquiring clients.
The price “is certainly higher than even the high end of the price range that most speculated this highly coveted asset would go for,” said Meny Grauman, an analyst for Scotiabank Global Equity Research. Analysts had expected a price between $5.9 billion and $8.2 billion, he said.