Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) yesterday said that its public tender offer for Jih Sun Financial Holding Co (日盛金控) was successful, marking the first-ever merger and acquisition of financial holding companies in Taiwan.
As of yesterday, the last day of its tender offer, Fubon Financial had purchased 2.03 billion, or 53.84 percent, of Jih Sun Financial’s outstanding shares, the nation’s second-largest financial holding company by assets said in a statement.
As Fubon Financial has bought more than its minimum target of 1.88 billion shares, or 50 percent, the company said that it has met one of the conditions of the tender offer.
Photo: Maurice Tsai, Bloomberg
That the Fair Trade Commission on Feb. 24 approved the deal is another condition for the deal, it said.
Jih Sun Financial, which had criticized Fubon Financial for offering too low a price, had not commented on the takeover as of press time last night.
Fubon Financial plans to close the deal by Tuesday next week, it said.
The company’s banking unit, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行), is to be integrated with Jih Sun International Bank (日盛銀行), while its securities arm, Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券), is to be integrated with Jih Sun Securities Co (日盛證券), it said.
Fubon Financial said it believes that the integration would boost the status and economic scale of its banking and securities businesses, as the number of bank branches would rise and the client base of its securities unit would also increase.
“We will ask Jih Sun Financial and its subsidiaries to provide more information and we will have on-site checks to set up our integration plan,” the statement said.
It is estimated that the deal has cost Fubon Financial NT$26.4 billion (US$926.9 million), given Fubon’s offer of NT$13 per share for Jih Sun Financial.
Fubon Financial would raise fresh capital of NT$50 billion by issuing common shares and special shares in the second half of this year, in a bid to fund the deal and the following integration of subsidiaries, it said.
It is the first time that a local financial holding company has acquired its smaller rival since the Financial Supervisory Commission allowed the financially solid companies to conduct such mergers and acquisitions in 2018.
Fubon Financial has assets of NT$9.25 trillion, ranking second only to Cathay Financial Holdings Co (國泰金控), while Jih Sun Financial has assets of NT$358 billion, the second-lowest among all financial holdings, the companies’ data showed. After absorbing Jih Sun Financial, Fubon Financial would still be the second-largest financial holding in Taiwan, lagging behind Cathay Financial, which has assets of NT$10.96 trillion.
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