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| Philippine National Bank (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The SM group of companies is making a bid for the acquisition of a stake in Philippine National Bank and its possible merger with BDO Unibank Inc. as talks between PNB and Bank of the Philippine Islands remained inconclusive.
In an interview SM Investments Corporation chief finance officer Jose Sio said they are in discussions with PNB’s principal shareholder Lucio Tan for a possible investment in PNB.
“We are always interested in making investments for as long as it will help us grow,” Sio said adding that BDO chairperson Tessie Sy has a good relationship with Tan.
However, Sio laughed off market talk that BDO has offered to acquire a stake in PNB at R150 per share. “Well I heard market talk saying we offered R200 per share,” he countered. PNB last traded at R92.70 per share.
Sio said the price will have to be determined after they look into the quality of PNB’s assets although he noted that the bank has a good land bank of prime properties. The SM group is also in real estate, particularly malls and residential buildings.
Bank of the Philippine Islands and PNB have earlier asked the Philippine Stock Exchange to suspend the trading of their shares as they disclosed that their principals are in discussion for a possible merger.
However, the banks eventually asked the PSE to lift the trading suspension since no deal has been made.
It was reported that PNB may have received counter-offers from other banks since a merger between BPI and PNB may translate to market leadership, dislodging BDO as the top bank and Metrobank as the second largest lender in the country.
Analysts had said that a merger between BPI and PNB would have triggered a new wave of merger and acquisitions (M&As) in the local banking industry.
Once a merger between BDO and PNB pushes through, this would further cement BDO’s position as the country’s biggest bank.
COL Financial research head April Tan Lee noted that, in the 1990s, there was a wave of M&As after Equitable Bank merged with PCI Bank.
“I think what happened was that Metrobank bought all these banks afterwards to maintain its number one position,” Lee said adding that, “The question today is, will that trigger more consolidation from big names because they want to maintain their lead?”
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/385912/bdo-keen-on-pnb-acquisition#.UMKFQuSmj3w
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