A man walks towards the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) headquarters building in Singapore. Net profit for OCBC jumped 29% to a record USS$899mil for Q1, while for DBS it climbed 30% to a record USS$1.23bil, boosted by the sale of a stake in a Philippine lender - AFP Photo.
SINGAPORE: Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, Southeast Asia’s second-largest lender, agreed to buy National Australia Bank Ltd.’s wealth management business in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Singapore-based OCBC said the business is made up of a mortgage portfolio of about US$1.7bil and deposits of some US$3.05bil, according to a stock exchange filing Thursday.
The purchase price will be determined based on the book value of the NAB operation at the time the transaction is completed, the filing said.
OCBC has been building up its wealth business, turning its unit Bank of Singapore into one of the 10 largest private banks in Asia, according to the 2016 league table published by Asian Private Banker. Last year, OCBC purchased Barclays Plc’s wealth units in Hong Kong and Singapore.
NAB, in contrast, has been pulling back from its overseas operations, spinning off U.K.-based Clydesdale Bank last year. The Melbourne-based lender said the sale of the business, which serves private wealth clients in Singapore and Hong Kong, would allow it to focus on Asian corporate, business and institutional customers.
The addition of NAB’s loans will increase OCBC’s mortgage portfolio by about 4% and the lender will also gain access to about 11,000 new customers, the Singapore bank’s statement said.
The purchase price of the NAB assets won’t involve any premium to book value, OCBC said. - Bloomberg
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