CIMB to buy 60 pct of San Miguel's bank unit soon
Malaysia's second largest lender CIMB Group will sign a deal soon to buy 60 percent of Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp's unlisted banking arm, the chairman of Bank of Commerce said on Monday.
It would be the first foray by the Malaysian bank in the Philippines, further boosting its regional footprint after it bought some equities and investment banking units from Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc elsewhere in Asia earlier this month. The deal will also allow San Miguel, the country's most diverse conglomerate, to keep a minority stake in the unlisted bank while focusing on its new ventures such as power, mining, telecoms, infrastructure, and more recently, airlines.

The deal will be presented to Bank of Commerce shareholders at a meeting on April 24.
San Miguel was little changed in early trade on Monday, slipping 0.3 percent, in step with the broader market's 0.3 percent decline. CIMB was down 0.4 percent. CIMB's buy-in may be worth about $200 million to $250 million and could be finalised in the next few days, said a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Temasek buys $2.3 bln of ICBC shares from Goldman
Singapore state investor Temasek is buying $2.3 billion worth of ICBC's Hong Kong-listed shares from seller Goldman Sachs , piling into three of China's top four banks and raising its bet on the world's second-biggest economy.
Temasek was burned by its financial industry exposure in 2008, hit by stakes in large European and U.S. banks that plunged in the crisis. But it has kept nearly 40 percent of its investment portfolio in banks it feels are strong and are capturing emerging market growth.

Goldman first bought 4.9 percent of ICBC for about $2.6 billion before the 2006 IPO, which was then the world's biggest public offering. The latest stake purchase comes after Temasek, which manages about $150 billion in assets, raised about $800 million since the start of the year in three significant selldowns in its portfolio companies. This included a 1.4 percent stake sale in ICICI Bank.