Other European investors who also plan to end investments in the country include the Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest lender by assets, which wants to offload its stake in Thailand’s sixth largest bank Thanachart Bank after eight years.

SCB chief executive Arthid Nanthawithaya said those investors would gradually sell non-core businesses, presenting opportunities for others. This was likely to spur consolidation activities this year.

The Central Group and the consumer arm of the TCC Group, Berli Jucker, appear to be interested in buying Casino Group’s stake in Big C.

A source in investment |banking noted that apart from Central Group and Berli Jucker, Charoen Pokphand Group, |Thai energy giant PTT and Japanese retailer AEON were also interested in joining the bid.

Arthid confirmed this deal was being eyed by Thai and foreign conglomerates.

“We have to make sure that this hypermarket can add |value to the existing businesses of our client and if the bidding price is more than what we |discussed with the customer, |we will inform them that they should not buy,” he said, without disclosing the client’s |name.

“SCB will be involved in |this deal only for the fee |income from acting as the financial adviser – not as a lender,” he said. “Chinese banks are keen on giving loans to our customer if they win the auction.”

A syndicated loan is suitable for supporting the winning bidder because the auction price was high, he added.

Pimolpa Suntichok, first executive vice president of |SCB, said that the auction |price was near Bt100 billion, which was out of reach of |most Thai tycoons. Pimolpa said it was a similar situation |to when a Casino affiliate bought Carrefour in |Thailand.

Arthid said that hyper-|markets had been hit by the digital revolution, and the |challenge for the buyer of Casino’s stake was whether |to operate Big C based on the same model, or leverage the retailer using its existing businesses.

Recently, US retail giant Walmart announced it was closing over 200 stores this year as part of the company’s “sharpened focus on portfolio management”.