BANKING & FINANCE - Jan. 5, 1993

First Interstate Sells International Units: First Interstate Bancorp has “substantially completed” the sale of certain merchant banking operations to Standard Chartered for an undisclosed price. Since announcing the sale last February, the Los Angeles banking company has transferred nearly all of its 20 offices in 15 countries, along with about 700 employees, to the British bank. The sale involved more than $900 million in loans and other assets from First Interstate’s international, worldwide corporate finance, foreign bank services and global trading businesses. The sale is part of the firm’s continuing plan to shed operations that are nonessential or outside its regional focus on 13 states in the West.