ANZ said it has agreed to sell 16.5% of the issued capital in AmBank via a block trade at a price of RM3.85 per share.
PETALING JAYA: Hot on the heels of its initial plan to sell a 9% stake in AMMB Holdings Bhd
(AmBank), Australia’s fourth largest bank ANZ Group has upsized its stake sale, opting to divest a larger 16.5% stake in the Malaysian banking group for about RM2.1bil cash.
ANZ in a statement said it has agreed to sell 16.5% of the issued capital in AmBank via a block trade at a price of RM3.85 per share.
The sale would reduce ANZ’s shareholding in AmBank from 21.7% to 5.2% and is in line with ANZ’s strategy of simplifying the bank. Following the sale, ANZ would continue to have one nominated director on the AmBank board, it said.
Industry sources told StarBiz the demand for sale of AmBank’s shares have been overwhelming as the upsize portion of the shares (7.5%) have been fully sold in view of the quality of the bank and its good potential going forward.
“Around 80% to 85% of the buyers are Malaysian “long only funds” like institutions like pension funds, insurance companies etc. The remaining are primarily Asian funds, followed by funds from Europe and the United States,” the source added.
Besides ANZ as the single largest shareholder in AmBank, the other main shareholders are the bank’s founder Tan Sri Azman Hashim with an 11.8% stake, followed by the Employees Provident Fund’s 9.6%.
The joint placement agents for the share sale are Bank of America Securities and CIMB.
The sale proceeds would increase ANZ’s common equity tier 1(CET1) ratio by 16 basis points (bps) and are not expected to have a material impact on profit, it added.
The share disposal settlement is anticipated to occur tomorrow. ANZ’s capital management considerations would include the capital release from this sale, subject to regulatory approvals, ANZ said.
For its latest financial performance, AMMB Holdings posted a 22.3% rise in net profit to RM543.4mil in the third quarter ended Dec 31, 2023 from RM444.2mil in the same period a year ago.
Its revenue, however, eased to RM1.15bil from RM1.22bil previously. For the nine months, net profit was higher at RM1.4bil compared with RM1.3bil in the same period in 2022.
