https://www.ketrade.com.sg/page/SLQG_NewsArticleFrame.jsp?ARTICLE_ID=4778401
(adds detail on offer, background on Singapore deals)
By Min Hun Fong and Saeed Azhar
KUALA LUMPUR/SINGAPORE, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Maybank , Malaysia's biggest lender, will make an offer to buy Singapore brokerage Kim Eng Holdings
for $1.4 billion in the biggest ever deal involving a securities house in the city-state.
This would be the first major deal in the industry in Singapore since 2005, when Malaysia's CIMB
bought the brokerage unit of G.K. Goh Holdings
for $146 million and comes at a time when Southeast Asian markets are on a roll.
Maybank said that it is buying a 44.6 percent stake in Kim Eng from a unit of Taiwan's Yuanta Financial Holdings <2885.TW> and the family that owns the Singapore broker for S$3.10 per share, a premium of about 15 percent to Wednesday's closing price.
It is also making a conditional mandatory offer for the remaining shares it does not own. Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Securities also owns about 29 percent of Kim Eng and it was not clear whether it will sell the shares or not. The deal is expected to broaden Maybank's sources of overseas revenue following its entry into Pakistan, Vietnam and Indonesia to offset slowing growth in Malaysia's increasingly crowded financial market.
Besides Singapore, Kim Eng also has a large operation in Thailand, where it is the biggest foreign broker in terms of market share and is also active in Philippines and Malaysia. "It should be positive for Maybank as it will broaden its overseas penetration," said Kaladher Govindan, research head at Malaysia's TA Securities.
Maybank and Kim Eng shares rose nearly 3 percent on Wednesday before being suspended from trade on Thursday. Shares in Kim Eng, which has a market capitalisation of about $1.26 billion, have risen over 35 percent since mid-December, when reports emerged of an impending stake sale.
(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
((Raju.Gopalakrishnan@thomsonreuters.com))
Keywords: MAYBANK/
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