Following Laurentian Bank of Canada's announcement that it’s undergoing a strategic review, experts are debating how many suitors would be interested in the taking it over.

Laurentian announced on Tuesday the review would look at options to maximize shareholder value, which is often seen as a precursor to a sale.

Gabriel Dechaine, managing director of Canadian Banks and Insurance analyst at National Bank Financial, believes every big Canadian bank will show some interest.

“I think pretty much every bank is going to look at it,” he told BNN Bloomberg Wednesday. “Whenever a large financial services asset comes for sale, which isn’t that often, it’s going to attract a lot of interest, so I would expect every Big 6 bank in Canada to kick the tires on it.”

Dechaine expects Scotiabank and TD Bank to be the immediate frontrunners in terms of interest and that the eventual price will be about book value, or around $60 per share.

 

“The combination of some expense synergies and some revenue synergies could easily make this deal accretive to a larger bank and justify a higher multiple than where it currently trades,” he said.

Paul Harris, partner and portfolio manager at Harris Douglas Asset Management, believes the interest in Laurentian will be more muted, with TD Bank focused on U.S. growth and RBC focused on its deal with HSBC.

“Maybe CIBC or the Bank of Nova Scotia would be interested in it, National Bank’s probably not interested in it, because they’ve already got a strong Quebec franchise,” he said.

“Maybe everybody will kick the tires, but I don’t know necessarily that all those other banks really have an interest in them.”

Jim Thorne, chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, doesn’t think any of Canada’s big banks should be keen on Laurentian and should instead focus their efforts on the unstable U.S. banking sector.

“I wouldn’t touch this,” he said. “I would sit back and I would wait to pick up some really cheap U.S. assets next year.”