South Korea's Hana Bank is considering the purchase of an equity stake in Merrill Lynch, a spokesman for Hana's holding company told Dow Jones Newswires on Monday.
The news service also quoted an unnamed source as saying Hana is in talks with Singapore's Temasek Holdings to acquire one million Merrill shares for $50 million. "Hana and Temasek have reached an agreement, and the announcement of the deal will likely come sometime next month, with the deal closing [in March]," the source told Dow Jones. The Hana spokesman declined to comment to Dow Jones on what the unnamed source said.
Temasek held a 9.62% stake in Hana's holding company, Hana Financial Holdings, as of September
"If the reported terms are something under discussion, it sounds reasonable as Temasek may want to spread its risk from owning too high a stake in Merrill Lynch and Hana would be one of their closest contacts," Nomura Securities analyst Kim Jin-Sang told Dow Jones.
Merrill announced it would accept a $4.4 billion capital infusion from Temasek in December.
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