Great Eastern to sell stake in Malaysian ops

Great Eastern Holdings Ltd is reportedly planning to dispose of its stake in its Malaysian operations for as much as USD1 billion. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Singapore-listed insurer had already engaged a Malaysian bank to discuss the potential deal.

Great Eastern is an 87 percent-owned subsidiary of OCBC Bank in Singapore.

Other foreign insurers reportedly in discussion to dispose of their stakes in their respective Malaysian subsidiaries ahead of a Bank Negara deadline requiring a 30 percent local ownership include Prudential plc of the United Kingdom and Tokio Marine Holdings of Japan.

Both Prudential and Tokio Marine are planning to sell close to a third of the shares in their Malaysian units. These deals could potentially raise USD3bil collectively over the next nine months.

Various reports said potential buyers of stakes that would be disposed of by foreign insurers would be local institutional funds such as the Employees Provident Fund and Permodalan Nasional Bhd.