Two giants of Wall Street's private equity industry are uniting to bid for Royal Bank of Scotland branches

wo titans of Wall Street's buyout industry have teamed up to bid for hundreds of British bank branches owned by the state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland. (Sky News) have learned that Leon Black, the head of Apollo Global Management, and Christopher Flowers, founder of the private equity group JC Flowers & Co, are to form a joint venture in an attempt to acquire the 316 branches. The powerful alliance between two of the wealthiest financiers in the US will provide Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) with some much-needed competitive tension as it tries to drum up interest in the business. A previous sale to Santander UK, the British arm of the Madrid-based banking giant, collapsed in October amid recriminations over the IT systems supporting the branch network. It is unclear how much the RBS business will fetch after Santander UK whittled the price down several times before walking away from the deal altogether.....Read more here: Exclusive: Buyout Giants Plot Joint RBS Bid