The Singapore lender, having won a tussle to take Hong Kong’s Wing Hang Bank private, has reshuffled leadership of the acquired bank, naming a new CEO.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, which has just won a tussle to take Hong Kong’s Wing Hang Bank private, has reshuffled leadership of the acquired bank, naming a new CEO.

OCBC said it had appointed Na Wu Beng as chief executive of Wing Hang Bank with effect from 18 August. With that move, Dr Patrick Fung, Wing Hang Bank’s current chairman and chief executive, will relinquish his role as its CEO remain as Wing Hang Bank’s non-executive chairman.

Na was for 10 years the deputy president director of Bank OCBC NISP, OCBC Bank’s banking subsidiary in Indonesia. He has worked at OCBC since 1990, joining as the general manager of OCBC Bank’s Hong Kong branches. He returned to Singapore in 1999 to take on the role of head of North Asia, and was responsible for the bank’s operations in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

From 2000 to 2004, before his posting to Bank OCBC NISP, he headed OCBC Bank’s international banking division – overseeing branches across eight countries. Mr Na was appointed Executive Vice President in 2001.

Commenting on Mr Na’s appointment, Mr Samuel Tsien, Group CEO of OCBC Bank, said: “Wu Beng embodies the OCBC culture and corporate values. I am therefore confident that Wu Beng will be able to quickly bring Wing Hang into the OCBC family, working with the teams in both organisations to create and realise synergistic value.

Share control tussle
OCBC has been able to make the CEO announcement after hiking its ownership in Wing Hang to 97.52 per cent last week, as announced by the banks in regulatory filings. Under Hong Kong rules, OCBC was required to own at least 90 per cent of the bank before it could take it off the listed market.

As OCBC – which provides services including wealth management – has previously stated, it wishes to expand its Greater China region footprint, seeing Wing Hang’s purchase as part of that process.

Last week, once the hurdle had been surmounted, shares of OCBC rose 1.6 per cent to S$9.92 in Singapore, the biggest intraday gain since 30 April (source: Bloomberg, other media).

A potential problem surfaced when the activist hedge fund Elliott Capital Advisors increased its stake in Wing Hang to 7.8 per cent,  said to have put pressure on OCBC to hike its sake, although the bank is understood to have said it would not raise its offer.

The saga also throws light on how OCBC, one of the “big three” local Singapore banking groups (along with DBS and United Overseas Bank) are seen as attempting to win crucial market share in the fast-growing Asian region.