RHB Bank not in merger talks with AMMB

KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd is not in any potential merger talks with AMMB Holdings Bhd, said group managing director Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli.

“There is no talk about merging with any bank,” he told a press conference after the company’s 51st annual general meeting yesterday.

Khairussaleh was responding to a question on a merger talk between the two banks which resurfaced recently as reported by a local English daily.

“As far as I know, there is no merger talk with any bank.

“But if there is an opportunity, and merit is there, of course, we will consider,” he said.

On the bank’s loan performance, Khairussaleh said the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment would at least maintain last year’s growth of 15 per cent this year.

“We saw the SME loan did quite well in the first quarter of the year, so we are quite optimistic that the growth would be as good as last year,” he said, adding the SME segment accounted for about 16 per cent of the company’s total portfolio, up from 14 per cent recorded two to three years ago.

Khairussaleh said RHB Bank was reshaping its total portfolio to skew towards more SME and retail segments compared to the corporate segment.

Currently, he said the retail segment constitutes 49- 50 per cent of the total portfolio, followed by corporate (31 per cent), while SME makes up the remaining of 19 per cent.