Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp is weighing a bid for Standard Chartered’s Indonesian bank. The move could create the country's fifth-largest lender.
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) is mulling to a bid for close to 90 percent of PT Bank Permata, which has a market value of about US$1.9 billion, «Bloomberg» reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
However, deliberations by Singapore's second-largest bank are still at an early stage and may not result in a deal, the people quoted by «Bloomberg»(behind paywall) said. Permata Bank reported net income of 711.4 billion Rupiah for the first half of this year, much higher than the 288.8 billion Rupiah a year earlier.
Sellers
OCBC is interested in the stakes held equally by Standard Chartered and PT Astra International, the sources quoted by Bloomberg said. Standard Chartered and Jakarta-listed Astra each own about 44.6 percent of Permata, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
In February, Standard Chartered signaled that its Permata investment is no longer considered core, implying it may be getting ready to sell the stake.
OCBC purchased Wing Hang Bank in Hong Kong for $5 billion in 2014. Then in 2016, it paid $227.5 million for the wealth assets of Barclays in Singapore and Hong Kong.
