MBSB-Asian Finance Bank merger completed

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Building Society Bhd’s (MBSB) RM645 million takeover of Asian Finance Bank Bhd (AFB) has been completed following the settlement by MBSB of the balance cash consideration of RM357.2 million and the allotment of the consideration shares.

MBSB said in a Bursa Malaysia filing yesterday that upon the listing of the consideration shares today, an amount of RM24.8 million, representing the deposit paid on the portion of the purchase consideration settled via the consideration shares, will be refunded to MBSB.

The merger will create the second largest Islamic bank in the country and enable MBSB to emerge as a full-fledged Islamic bank in Malaysia with access to funding sources that were not previously available such as current account deposits and interbank funding.

MBSB has been converting all its conventional assets and liabilities to be syariah-compliant in order to inject them into AFB.

AFB, a full-fledged Islamic bank that was incorporated in Nov 28, 2005, has a branch each in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Baru as well as a representative office in Jakarta, Indonesia, its website shows.

MBSB’s largest stakeholder, the Employees Provident Fund, will see its stake diluted from 65.56% to 63.16%, while second largest shareholder Tan Sri Chua Ma Yu’s equity interest will be reduced from 8.78% to 8.45%. The vendors of AFB will collectively own a 3.66% stake in MBSB.

On Bursa Malaysia yesterday, MBSB closed unchanged at RM1.18 with 10.8 million shares done.