OCBC pays US$228m for Barclays' Singapore, HK wealth business

Singapore

OVERSEA-Chinese Banking Corp's purchase of Barclays Plc's wealth-management units in Singapore and Hong Kong was priced at US$227.5 million, 29 per cent below an initial estimate, after the amount of assets being transferred fell.

The final price is based on 1.75 per cent of the US$13 billion of Barclays assets transferred to Bank of Singapore, OCBC's private-banking arm, the Singapore bank group said on Monday in an exchange filing. OCBC had given an indicative price of US$320 million in April when it announced the deal, based on the Barclays units' end-2015 assets of US$18.3 billion. There were Barclays clients who chose to maintain relationships with a European private bank to diversify their holdings, Bank of Singapore chief executive officer Bahren Shaari said in an e-mail, without giving further details. There were also customers who already had existing relationships with Bank of Singapore and…