Japan's Mitsubishi UFG to buy majority stake in Thailand's Bank of Ayudhya for $5.60 bn

Japanese lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) is buying at least 75 per cent stake in Thailand's fifth-largest lender Bank of Ayudhya Pcl, in a $5.60 billion (560 billion yen) deal.

MUFG, Japan's biggest bank, plans to acquire the stake through a tender offer to Bank of Ayudhya shareholders, which include General Electric Co (GE). GE holds about 25 per cent in the Thai lender.

The deal would be the largest for a Thai bank, based on Bank of Ayudhya's market value of more than $7 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The deal would allow MUFG, which has substantial operations in Japanese companies in Thailand, to expand retail and corporate banking across Southeast Asia.

MUFG also said it could merge its Thai operations with that of Bank of Ayudhya, in order to meet Thailand's single presence policy on bank ownership.

Bank of Ayudhya provides a range of banking, consumer finance, investment, asset management, and other financial products and services to individual consumers, SMEs, and large corporation through 601 branches and over 19,000 service outlets nationwide.

Through its Krungsri subsidiaries, the Bank is the largest card issuer in Thailand with 6.2 million accounts (credit cards, sales finance/personal loans) in its portfolio, a major automobile financing service provider (Krungsri Auto), the fastest growing asset management company (Krungsri Asset Management), and a pioneer in microfinance through CFG Services.