British bank Lloyds TSB has agreed to buy a book of British company loans from Denmark's Danske Bank as part of its plan to expand in corporate banking, it announced yesterday.

The loans represent 110 client relationships with risk-weighted assets of £2.5 billion (€3.56 billion) including undrawn facilities, the British bank said in a statement. Cash drawn on the loans amounts to £1.5 billion.

Lloyds TSB did not disclose the premium.

About 70 of the clients are existing customers of Lloyds TSB, which will also gain about 40 new corporate clients, a bank spokeswoman said.

"This deal is a perfect fit with our wholesale banking growth strategy," said Mr Truett Tate, Lloyds TSB's head of wholesale and international banking.

"It will allow us to deepen the relationships we have with a number of our existing corporate customers and acquire some important new corporate relationships," , said in the statement.

Danske Bank, which serves nearly three million retail customers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, is selling the portfolio because it does not fit into its core strategy. It is scaling back its international wholesale banking operations to expand into retail banking.

Last week, it announced that it had agreed to buy Northern Bank, the victim of Monday's £22 million raid in Belfast, and National Irish Bank in the Republic from the National Australia Bank (NAB) group.

That deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2005.

Lloyds TSB wants to expand its wholesale banking business to help revive revenue growth after concentrating on retail banking and limiting corporate lending in the 1990s. - (Reuters/PA)