Mega merger: CIMB to form Malaysia’s biggest bank

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s second largest bank CIMB Group has secured central bank approval to commence merger talks with RHB Capital and Malaysia Building Society to create the country’s biggest bank, media reports said Saturday. The merger plan comes as Malaysia hopes the financial sector will help realise the government’s vision of transforming Malaysia into a developed economy by 2020. The target is to double income per capita to 48,000 ringgit ($15,000) in the next six years.”The potential merged entity will have total assets of 614 billion ringgit. This will knock Maybank, which has total assets of about 578 billion ringgit, off the pole position,” the New Straits Times said Saturday. On Thursday, CIMB, RHB Capital, which is Malaysia’s fourth largest bank, and Malaysia Building Society said they had entered into a 90-day exclusivity agreement to negotiate the proposed merger of the three entities and “the creation of a mega Islamic bank”.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 13^th, 2014.

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