Investec sells UK mortgage business Kensington

South African banking group and asset manager Investec has sold its UK-based mortgage business Kensington for £180m.

The sale, which includes certain other Investec mortgage assets, was made to funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Advisors and TPG Special Situations Partners.

The consideration was based on the business having a tangible net asset value of £165m as of 31 March 2014.

"The transaction supports Investec's strategic objective to simplify and reshape its specialist banking business and substantially reduces the assets within its legacy non-core business," Investec said.

Once completed, the deal is thought to increase Investec common-equity tier-1 (CET1) capital ratio by around 1%.

This, along with the recent sale of Investec Bank (Australia), means that the CET1 is expected to increase from 8.8% at 31 March 2014 to around 11.3%.

Investec's shares were up 0.1% at 557p in early deals on Tuesday.