Intesa Sanpaolo mulling bid for Coutts - FT report

MILAN, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Italy's biggest retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo is considering making a bid for Coutts, the wealth management arm of Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) , the Financial Times said on Sunday.

RBS recently put up Coutts's international operations for sale, but the FT cited a person close to the situation as saying Intesa Sanpaolo was trying to persuade RBS and its advisers to sell the whole of the business.

Intesa Sanpaolo declined to comment.

Coutts International is expected to be valued at more than 500 million pounds ($781.75 million), the FT said.

The move by Intesa Sanpaolo is part of a plan to deploy 16 billion euros of excess capital, the newspaper said.

(1 US dollar = 0.6396 British pound) (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes. Editing by Jane Merriman)