OCBC in Talks With Thai Billionaire on United Engineers
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC) and its insurance subsidiary are in exclusive talks to sell their stakes in Singapore’s United Engineers Ltd. and its WBL Corp. unit to Thailand’s richest man.
Selling the stake would help OCBC, Southeast Asia’s second-largest lender by assets, bolster capital after its $5 billion takeover of Hong Kong’s Wing Hang Bank Ltd. this year.
“This positive development gives us a hint as to why OCBC’s share offering to help fund the Wing Hang Bank acquisition was on the extreme low side of expectations,” said Jim Antos, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. with a buy rating on the Singaporean lender.
OCBC, its insurance unit and the bank’s founding Lee family own a combined 34.1% stake in United Engineers, according to a filing in August last year. Buying more than a 30% stake would trigger a mandatory takeover offer for United Engineers (UEM) under Singapore rules.
Charoen is Thailand’s richest person with a net worth estimated at $12.4 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He controls an empire whose businesses span industries from beer to property development.
Source: bloomberg
