* Swiss buyer confirms exclusive Gesfid sale talks
* Sees price based on 1 percent of assets plus net cash
* Fondiaria-SAI shares up 1.5 percent, in line with sector
(Adds details, background, shares)
ZURICH/MILAN, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Italian insurer Fondiaria-SAI SpA is in exclusive talks to sell its Gesfid Swiss private bank business to Switzerland's Pkb privatbank in a further divestment step to raise capital.
Pkb privatbank Co-Director General Luca Soncini confirmed his comments on Wednesday in the Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore on the exclusive talks. The daily said Gesfid manages 1.7 billion Swiss francs ($1.68 billion) of assets.
Deals of this kind would be valued at around 1 percent of assets plus net cash, Soncini said.
Pkb is active in Switzerland -- including its southern Ticino region -- and Latin America, and wants to develop in Europe, including in Italy via its link with the Cassa Lombarda bank, he said.
Fondiaria-SAI is selling non-core assets as well as real estate to boost its weak solvency ratio -- a measure of available capital over risk capital.
One Milan-based broker said a Gesfid sale would ease Fondiaria's delicate capital position.
At the start of August, CEO Fausto Marchionni said the company was in advanced talks to sell its Liguria-Sasa insurance unit to a private equity fund. Earlier this week he said there were two possible buyers.
Liguria-Sasa is seen fetching around 300 million euros ($384 million) in a sale, analysts have said.
Fondiaria-SAI was not immediately able to comment.
At 1153 GMT, Fondiaria-SAI shares were up 1.5 percent at 7.605 euros, in line with the STOXX Europe 600 Insurance index. (Reporting by Martin de Sa'Pinto in Zurich and Nigel Tutt in Milan; Editing by Michael Shields)