Singapore's OCBC wraps up takeover of Wing Hang Bank
The Singaporean bank secures 97.5pc of the Hong Kong lender, despite market concerns over low valuation for the HK$38.4 billion acquisition
Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp completed its buyout of Wing Hang Bank yesterday for HK$38.4 billion and now plans to take the Hong Kong lender private.
OCBC, Southeast Asia's second-largest bank, now owns 97.52 per cent of Wing Hang, the banks said in a joint statement filed with the Hong Kong stock exchange. The city's regulations require at least 90 per cent ownership to delist.
OCBC has slowly edged up its stake in its target this month. Last week, it increased its stake by almost 11 percentage points to 67.8 per cent, filings with the Securities and Futures Commission showed. OCBC had 56.9 per cent on July 17, up 6.5 percentage points since July 4.
Yesterday was the deadline for Wing Hang to accept OCBC's HK$125 per share offer. Wing Hang closed down nearly 2 per cent. The announcement was made after the market close. Earlier this month, some minority shareholders of Wing Hang raised concerns that the deal was undervalued.
The offer for the bank, launched in April, had been accepted by 50.4 per cent of the shareholders, including the family of Wing Hang's chairman Patrick Fung Yuk-bun and Bank of New York Mellon. Billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Capital said at the time that it raised its stake in Wing Hang, which Mizuho Securities Asia said could have pressured OCBC to raise its offer price.
Asked if OCBC might be forced to raise its offer, Samuel Tsien, OCBC chief executive, had rejected those market concerns over low valuation at the time.