Just weeks after Luxembourg's oldest bank was sold to Chinese firm Legend Holdings, a Hong Kong listed conglomerate has also moved into European private banking.
Hong Kong headquartered investment company Mason Group will acquire Raiffeisen Privatbank Liechtenstein, a Liechtenstein-based private bank, for 58.6 million Swiss francs.
Mason, which has business interests in financial services and healthcare, intends to use net proceeds from its rights issue in February this year to fund this transaction.
Asian Acquisitions Speed up
The acquisition will provide the group a platform to expand into the European private-banking market and develop its wealth-management business in the continent, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Raiffeisen Privatbank provides its services mainly to clients from Germany, Austria and Spain. It posted a profit after tax of 1.47 million Swiss francs in 2016, a 44 percent increase over the previous year. The transaction is subject to approval from the Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority.
Last month China's Legend Holdings took a 90 percent stake in Banque Internationale a Luxembourg (BIL) for 1.48 billion euros making it the biggest takeover of a European deposit-taking bank by a Chinese firm to date. In another deal Chinese automotive group Geely took control of Denmark's Saxo Bank after the firm increased its stake to 51.5 percent.
