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More M&As expected in financial sector

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) will continue this year, mainly in the financial sector, which is in need of consolidation, an investment banker with the UBS Securities Ltd's Taipei branch said yesterday.

"We expected to see M&A deals in the financial sector -- in the form of either buyout or equity investment -- this year," Jerry Guo (郭嘉宏), head of investment banking at UBS Securities, told reporters.

It was unlikely that there would be deals as big as Standard Chartered Bank's acquisition of Hsinchu International Bank (新竹國際商銀) for US$1.2 billion, he said.

As state-run and family-owned big lenders appeared slow to expand, buyers would mainly be foreign investors and private equity funds, he said.

A number of smaller lenders are reportedly in close talks with interested foreign buyers, including the Bank of Overseas Chinese (華僑銀行) with Citibank, Far Eastern International Bank (遠東國際商銀) with HSBC and the latest EnTie Commercial Bank (安泰商業銀行) with Orix Group of Japan.

Meanwhile, Guo said UBS Securities expected to wrap up an M&A deal they were advising on before the Lunar New Year, involving a foreign buyer's acquisition of a majority of a non-financial Taiwanese company for more than US$500 million.

The trend of overseas or local Taiwanese companies going public in overseas bourses is expected to continue this year, Guo said.
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