Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), Taiwan’s second-largest financial services company by market value, offered HK$1.47 billion (US$188 million) to take its Hong Kong unit private to cut costs.
Taipei-based Fubon Financial will pay HK$5 for each ordinary share to buy the 25 percent of Fubon Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd (富銀香港) it doesn’t already own, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. That’s a 32 percent premium over Fubon Bank’s closing price on Friday of HK$3.78.
The bid values the Hong Kong lender at 1.16 times its book value as of June 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行), the world’s largest lender, in August offered HK$10.83 billion, or 2.14 times book value, to take its local unit private, the data showed.
Fubon Financial said the acquisition was in part to reduce costs associated with the unit being publicly traded. Fubon Bank’s profit climbed 52 percent to HK$153 million in the first half of last year from a year earlier, according to an Aug. 27 filing with Hong Kong’s exchange.
Fubon Financial will also acquire 3.28 percent preference shares of the Hong Kong unit, the statement said.
Separately, Fubon Financial Holding Co reported unaudited net income of NT$23.45 billion last year, or NT$2.75 earnings per share, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
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