RBS Aviation Capital, the plane leasing company owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, could be put up for sale after it was placed into a non-core unit with £230bn of bad loans, in order to be disposed of.
Goldman Sachs has been called in to assess options for the unit, which leases aircraft to 100 airline customers in 40 countries.
The business has 90 employees and is located in London, Dublin, Toulouse, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Dubai.
RBS has been reducing costs, has already sold off the majority of its business in Asia and is due to sell the remainder to Standard Chartered.
These efforts are in line with RBS chief executive Stephen Hester's plan to scale down the bank.
Other plane leasing businesses are looking to disassociate from their troubled financial services parent companies. American insurer AIG is in the process of selling its International Lease Finance Corp business.
