S&P Global Market Intelligence offers our top picks of banking news stories and more published throughout the week. Please note that some entries may have links to third-party sources that require a subscription.
M&A activity
* Thailand-based Bangkok Bank PCL agreed to buy an 89.12% stake in Indonesia's PT Bank Permata Tbk from Standard Chartered Bank and PT Astra International Tbk. The deal is valued at an estimated 37.431 trillion rupiah and is expected to be completed within 2020, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. Bangkok Bank said it expects to launch a mandatory tender offer for the remaining 10.88% stake in Bank Permata following the completion of the majority stake acquisition.
* The board of India's Yes Bank Ltd. is expected to reject a US$1.20 billion contribution from Canadian investor Erwin Singh Braich and Hong Kong-based SPGP Holdings toward the bank's US$2 billion capital raising, Bloomberg News reported, citing a source close to the matter. Yes Bank disclosed that the binding offer is still under discussion.
* IOOF Holdings Ltd. secured approvals from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to proceed with its proposed acquisition of Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.'s pension and investment business. The regulator approved IOOF to hold a controlling stake in ANZ's OnePath Custodians Pty. Ltd. and Oasis Fund Management Ltd., which are owned by ANZ.
Regulatory actions
* The Australian prudential regulator decided to keep the extra capital buffers that banks are required to hold in case of heightened systemic risk at zero, but warned about the likelihood of non-zero default level in the future.
* The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas maintained the rates on the overnight reverse repurchase facility at 4%, the overnight deposit facility at 3.5% and overnight lending facility at 4.5% amid a benign inflation environment.
* Indonesia's central bank is considering relaxing lending rules and may further cut interest rates as it seeks to maintain the economic growth momentum after four rate cuts in 2019, Reuters reported, citing Deputy Governor Dody Budi Waluyo. The central bank plans to ease rules on macroprudential intermediation ratio, or its way of measuring a bank's loan-to-deposit ratio, to boost bank lending, Waluyo added.
IPO corner
* Postal Savings Bank of China Co. Ltd. has completed its A share offering, which is scheduled to commence trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Dec. 10. The bank will issue 5,172,164,200 A shares if the overallotment option is not exercised, or up to 5,947,988,200 shares if the option is exercised.
* OneConnect Financial Technology Co. Ltd. priced its IPO of 31.2 million American depositary shares at US$10 per share. The offering is expected to raise gross proceeds of about US$358.8 million if the underwriters exercise their overallotment option of up to an additional 4,680,000 shares in full. The Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd. unit previously said that it was cutting the shares it planned to sell to 26 million.
In other news
* Malaysia's BIMB Holdings Bhd. proposed a group restructuring that will include a roughly 800 million-ringgit placement, an internal reorganization and the transfer of its listing status to subsidiary Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd.
* Philippine regulators and government agencies are investigating allegations that payments linked to child exploitation were sent to the Southeast Asian country through Westpac Banking Corp.'s LitePay payments channel, The Australian reported.
* Fitch Ratings is facing a A$40 million lawsuit from the liquidator of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s Australian division for allegedly misrepresenting the risk of synthetic collateralized debt obligations, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
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