OCBC CEO meets key Great Eastern deal holdouts in $1.4 billion takeover bid

SINGAPORE – OCBC Bank chief executive officer Helen Wong made a fresh effort to win over key shareholders of a Singapore insurer that the bank has been trying to take full control of for more than two decades.

Ms Wong earlier in January met Mr Wong Hong Sun and his brother Hong Yen, as well as representatives of Mr Lee Thor Seng and his family, who are long-time shareholders of Great Eastern Holdings, with a combined 3 per cent stake, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The CEO, who is not related to the Wong brothers, tried to persuade them to support OCBC’s attempt to buy up all the shares it does not own in Great Eastern, the people said, asking not to be identified in discussing private information.  

OCBC in 2024

made a $1.4 billion bid to take full control of the 116-year-old insurer,

its third attempt to do so since 2004. The bank held almost 94 per cent of Great Eastern after the takeover offer closed in July. That ownership level was not sufficient for the insurer to delist or for OCBC to compulsorily acquire the rest of its shares.

The latest meetings signal that Singapore’s second-largest lender may still be exploring ways to secure full control of the company.

OCBC can make a revised offer six months after the close of the previous offer, under the city state’s takeover code.

“Any actions that we take will always be guided by the interests of OCBC and our shareholders,” the bank’s spokesperson said in response to queries from Bloomberg News, declining to comment on any meeting.

Mr Colin Lee, one of Mr Lee Thor Seng’s sons, did not reply to an e-mail and a call to his office seeking comment. Mr Wong Hong Sun declined to comment.

Great Eastern shares have been suspended for the past six months because the proportion of the company’s shares held by the public has dropped to below 10 per cent.

The insurer has until Jan 24 to comply with the stock exchange’s free-float requirements. OCBC has said it does not intend to take any steps to maintain Great Eastern’s listing status.

OCBC’s cash offer of $25.60 a share was well above where Great Eastern was trading in the months before 2024’s takeover bid was announced. But some shareholders have said the price reflects a 30 per cent discount to the company’s embedded value, a metric that has been used to value other insurers.  

The insurer had a market capitalisation of $12.2 billion before its shares stopped trading, and it reported an embedded value of $17.32 billion in its 2023 annual report. 

By that measure, it is half the valuation the bank used in its previous attempts to take full ownership of the company.

Earlier in January, London-based shareholder Palliser Capital called the Great Eastern takeover bid “gravely unfair” to shareholders. 

The Wongs and the Lees are among Singapore’s moneyed clans.

The Wong brothers’ grandfather, Mr Wong Siew Qui, was chairman of Great Eastern Life Assurance from 1951 to 1969. The siblings own a total of 4.8 million shares, or a 1.01 per cent stake, in the listed company, according to the insurer’s 2023 annual report.  

Three companies controlled by Mr Lee and his sons, who are members of the clan that founded OCBC, own about 2 per cent of the insurer, the annual report shows. 

Great Eastern was founded in 1908, and is one of the largest insurers in Singapore and Malaysia.

It became a subsidiary of OCBC in 2004, and reported total assets of $109 billion at the end of 2023. BLOOMBERG