Hydrogen-transfer reduction processes are attracting increasing interest from synthetic chemists in view of their operational simplicity. In the present study novel ruthenium carbene complexes were generated in situ and tested for their transfer hydrogenation reactions. The in situ prepared 3 component 1,3-dialkyltetrahydropyrimidinium salts (LHX)/[RuCl2(p-cymene)](2) and KOH catalyzed quantitatively the transfer hydrogenation of ketones under mild reaction conditions in 2-propanol.