Thanachart, Siam City Bank merger completed
Thanachart Bank is upbeat about its banking business after completing its merger with Siam City Bank on Saturday.
“From now on, Thanachart Bank will appear as the name of the merged bank,” Somjate Moosirilert, CEO of TBank, said last week.
TBank’s logo and name would also be applied to every ATM and branch of SCIB nationwide.
The success of the merger, which took a year as planned, will be publicised tomorrow.
The deal, which is considered as the biggest combination of local banks, lifted TBank up to fifth in size, with assets of Bt800 billion, 17,000 employees and 683 branches.
The move began last year when TBank, a 51:49 joint venture of Thanachart Capital and Canada’s Nova Scotia Bank, paid Bt32 billion to the Financial Institutions Development Fund for a 47.58-per-cent stake in SCIB.
After that, TBank launched a tender offer for all shares of SCIB, raising its holding to 99.23 per cent, and then delisted SCIB from the stock exchange.
Since the merger process started in July last year, Somjate has tried to unify all working systems and inspire people to work together as smoothly as possible.
“None of the workers has been laid off,” he said.
All employees are needed to drive the bank forward and there are few overlapping business areas between the two banks, he said.
“The three things behind the success of the merger are communication, sincerity and harmonisation,” he said.
After concentrating on integrating the strategies and operations of the two banks this year, TBank is keen to expand aggressively, starting next year.
Currently, the bank has consolidated assets of Bt850 billion, ranking it sixth among all 11 universal banks.
The bank will be gearing up to increase both loans and deposits, targeting its market share to jump to 10 per cent within two to three years from 7-8 per cent now.
TBank is still drawing up its business plan for 2012, however, it wants to grow its deposits, SME loans and fee-based income.
SME credit products will be mass marketed, not customised as before, in a bid to expand its customer base in this segment.
Fees account for 13-15 per cent of total income. The bank would boost fee-based income through bancassurance and mutual funds, said Nophadon Ruengchinda, an executive vice president.
About 55 per cent of the loan portfolio is retail and 45 per cent is corporate and SME. Of retail loans, 70-80 per cent is hire purchases. TBank is the leader in this segment.
The bank plans to begin opening branches in the second half of next year.
It is seeking a new location for it headquarters. It would need at least two years to move from its existing offices in the MBK Building.
