Japanese SMFG buys 74.9% stake in Fullerton India for $ 2 billion
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, Japan’s second-largest lender by assets, said on Tuesday it would buy a 74.9% stake in Fullerton India for $ 2 billion, as the bank expands operations elsewhere in Asia amid low interest rates, marking the first entry into the South Asian country’s retail financial activities by a Japanese bank.
Japan’s second-largest lender will eventually acquire the rest of the Indian credit firm from Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte at a later stage, he said in a statement on Tuesday, without providing the terms of the transaction.
Bloomberg News previously reported that Sumitomo Mitsui would pay around 220 billion yen ($ 2 billion) for the detention, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified.
Fullerton Financial, the parent company of the Indian non-bank company, is a unit of the Singaporean public investment fund Temasek Holdings Pte. It is a shadow lender registered with the central bank that offers loans to individuals and small businesses.
Faced with poor growth prospects in his country, Sumitomo Mitsui has allocated resources to emerging markets in Asia in recent years. The bank took control of Indonesian lender PT Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional in 2019 after acquiring a minority stake earlier. Sumitomo Mitsui is looking for targets in Vietnam, the Philippines and India, chief executive Jun Ohta said in an interview in December.
Sumitomo Mitsui agreed in April to buy a 49% stake in Vietnamese consumer lender FE Credit. Last month, the bank announced it would buy a 4.99% stake in Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. from the Philippines for 4.48 billion pesos ($ 91 million).
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