Bank denies inking buyout deal

The Bank of Overseas Chinese (華僑銀行) saw its shares rise yesterday on news that Citigroup has offered to buy out the bank for NT$11.85 to NT$11.88 per share. But the Taiwanese lender said in a statement that it has not struck any deal yet.

The bank's shares soared 6.4 percent before closing up 3.7 percent to NT$11.30 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.

"We are still in talks. The interested foreign buyer has finished its due diligence but has not made an offer yet," Bank of Overseas Chinese spokesman Weng Chien (翁健) said in a telephone interview yesterday.

The bank hopes to complete the deal as soon as possible, Weng said.

He refused to name of the potential foreign investor, citing confidentiality, and declined to comment on whether the negotiations that have lasted for three months could be completed by the end of the year.

Both Dow Jones Newswires and the Chinese-language Com-mercial Times reported yesterday, citing people close to the deal, that Polaris Financial Group (寶來金融集團) has agreed to sell its holding in the bank to Citigroup for NT$14.15 billion (US$436 million) to NT$14.19 billion.

Polaris controls 40 percent of Bank of Overseas Chinese, which operates 55 branches nationwide.

The two parties would seal the deal within the next two weeks, the reports said.

In response, the bank said it has clarified its stance with the financial regulator in the wake of the news reports. The Financial Supervisory Commission said it has not received any takeover application concerning the reported deal.

The reported offer is lower than previous speculation of a NT$12 to NT$13 per share offer after factoring in compensation cost paid to the bank's employees.

Employees' compensation is estimated at NT$2.64 billion, Weng said. The bank said it would pay out NT$700 million from its reserves, while the buyer would shoulder the remainder, he added.

The potential deal has been delayed owing to strong opposition from the labor union, which has threatened to call a strike on Dec. 29 if the bank refused to sign a group agreement for employees' job protection by yesterday.

"The union is no longer a problem," Weng said, adding that more than 90 percent of some 2,200 employees have agreed to the terms of compensation and abandoned the idea of inking a group agreement.

"There will be no strike, guar-anteed," he said.

However, the bank's management seemed overly optimistic, as the union said the strike plan was on track, adding that the staff was forced to accept the compensation terms under the threat of layoff.

"We will still do it [the strike] as scheduled as the management has refused to negotiate," Bank of Overseas Chinese Industrial Union acting president Chen Hui-chih (陳惠治) said.