Singapore lender United Overseas Bank (UOB) has agreed to buy Citigroup’s consumer businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam for about S$4.915 billion ($3.65 billion), funding the purchase with the bank’s excess capital.
The proposed acquisition, UOB’s biggest in two decades, will double the group’s retail customer base in the four markets in Southeast Asia, where UOB already has a large presence and competes with Singapore rivals DBS Group and OCBC.
