BNP Paribas, France's biggest listed bank, is planning a sale of its retail banking operations in Egypt as the lender seeks to shore up its capital base and exit non-core operations, two people close to the matter said on Tuesday. BNP, which has around 70 branches in Egypt, may raise as much as $400 million if the sale goes through. Talks for the asset disposal by the French lender are at very early stages, sources told Reuters. The company has been shedding assets to meet tougher capital requirements under new banking regulations, intended to crack down on risk taking, that have forced many European banks to slash their balance sheets. A spokeswoman for BNP said the lender would examine any "expressions of interest" for the business while declining to provide any additional details. "BNP has had a strategic review of their international operations and decided to hive off the Egyptian retail business. It's not a massive business and talks are happening at very initial stages," a source told the new agency. Qatar National Bank (QNB), the largest lender in the Gulf Arab state, is one of the parties which has expressed initial interest. QNB, which has an ambitious expansion plan regionally, recently lost out to Russia's Sberbank in a bidding process for Turkey's DenizBank, Reuters reported.
