Lazard Gets Five Weeks to Find RBS Buyers Before Bankers Depart

Lazard Ltd., the largest non-bank merger adviser, has been given five weeks to find a buyer for all or parts of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s equities and advisory operations before managers start firing employees, according to three executives at the bank.

RBS, the U.K.’s largest state-owned lender, last week said it will sell or close its unprofitable cash equities, mergers advisory and equity capital markets units. The 3,500 affected employees won’t be put on redundancy notice until RBS concludes it can’t find a home for them elsewhere, said two of the executives, who declined to be identified. The decision needs to be made before the bank reports full-year earnings on Feb. 23 because clients are threatening to pull their business and employees are becoming increasingly de-motivated, they said.