Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation is buying Barclays’ wealth and investment-management business in Asia for about $320 million as Barclays is to shifting its focus to the US and its home market. According to OCBC, the acquisition will deepen the bank’s presence in its core markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Greater China. OCBC’s private banking unit, Bank of Singapore, will use cash to fund the purchase. The bank said the price is indicative, based on Barclays’s assets under management of $18.3 billion in Hong Kong and Singapore. The purchase will bring the OCBC unit’s size closer to DBS, Singapore’s largest wealth manager with private banking assets of $ 75 billion at the end of 2015. Asia’s growing wealth is attracting Swiss and US lenders to Singapore, seeking business in serving rich individuals.
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