The sale is part of moves CBA is making to recover from a damaging financial scandal.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has agreed to sell its global asset management business, Colonial First State Global Asset Management, to Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation. CBA is shedding what are seen as non-core businesses as it tries to fight back from compliance woes in Australia.

The Japanese firm will pay a cash consideration of $4.13 billion for the business, a deal that brings over $213 billion of assets under management, pitting it against rival Japanese investment houses such as Nikko Asset Management, among others.

In CBA’s case, it had said in June that it wished to spin off its wealth management and mortgage broking business, and has been in talks with the Japanese organisation since then.

The Australian bank has been through a rocky period. In June it agreed to pay a civil penalty of A$700 million ($535.2 million) to authorities for failing to immediately report more than 53,500 suspicious transactions, one of the worst financial scandals in the country’s history. The lender said it had entered into an agreement with Austrac, the Australian Government’s financial intelligence agency, to resolve the civil proceedings commenced by the watchdog in the Federal Court of Australia on 3 August last year. The agreement, which still has to be cleared by a court, will involve the largest fine of its kind in Australian history. Chief executive Matt Comyn, who took over earlier this year in April after replacing Ian Narev, has reshuffled its leadership, naming six new executives.

Comyn hailed the Japanese deal.

“CFSGAM is a high-quality business that has achieved strong growth under CBA’s ownership for over 18 years. MUTB is one of the largest asset managers in Japan, with a long history and deep capabilities. We believe that CFSGAM’s clients and employees will benefit from MUTB’s supportive long-term ownership,” Comyn said.

“Today’s announcement represents another important milestone in CBA’s strategy to focus on its core banking businesses and to create a simpler, better bank. The sale of CFSGAM to MUTB represents significant value for CBA shareholders and is a positive outcome for CFSGAM clients and employees,” Comyn said.

CBA said the Japanese firm’s payment for the business represented a multiple of 17.5 times CFSGAM’s pro-forma 18 full-year net profit after tax of A$236 million.

Because of CFSGAM’s global business interests, the transaction must be cleared by regulatory approvals in jurisdictions including in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and the US. The deal is expected to be completed in the middle of 2019.

CBA said the deal should produce a rise of about A$2.9 billion of Common Equity Tier 1 capital, a standard measure of a bank’s capital strength.