Across the Asian region, Public Bank’s valuation dwarfs even that of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd’s, the world’s biggest bank by asset size, which has a P/BV of 0.91 times. Public Bank, along with Hong Leong Bank Bhd (HLB), has always been known to be included in what is known as the unwritten policy of having two Chinese-owned banks in Malaysia. What’s different in HLB compared with Public Bank, though, is that there is a larger concentration of a single shareholder in HLB. Locally, after Public Bank, HLB is the second-most expensive bank with a 1.85 times P/BV. From that point of view, a merger between HLB and Affin Bank will be easy to facilitate.

Source: thestar September 14, 2018 23:37 UTC