Private equity firm TPG [TPG.UL] plans to buy a 40 percent stake in the rural banking unit of BDO Unibank Inc, the Philippines’ biggest lender said on Monday.
TPG Growth, a unit of the U.S. private equity firm, will acquire the stake in One Network Bank, a rural bank based in the southern Philippines, subject to regulatory approval.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Philippines relaxed foreign ownership rules for the banking sector in 2014, attracting interest from overseas investors although only a handful of deals have been completed so far.
This year Japan’s biggest bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said it would buy a fifth of mid-sized Philippine lender Security Bank Corp for $774 million, the biggest foreign financial sector equity investment in the Southeast Asian nation.
BDO will retain around 60 percent ownership in One Network Bank, which has more than 100 branches and offices.
“We look forward to working with TPG to accelerate ONB’s expansion and to develop new products to cover the underserved market segments,” BDO President Nestor Tan said in a statement.
(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Edwina Gibbs).
Source: Reuters.com