Research Paper on:
United Overseas Bank Group - Singapore

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
in a number of subsidiaries including Far Eastern Bank (74%) and Industrial & Commercial Bank (87%-owned) (Hoovers, 2002). Together, this group has 300 branches, most of which are located in  Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand but they also have a limited number of branches in 13 other countries in Australia, Europe, Asia and North America (Hoovers, 2002). UOB  also owns more than 40 percent of developer United Overseas Land and conglomerate Haw Par, which has a variety of products ranging from ointments to bowling alleys (Hoovers, 2002). UOB  recently purchased the Overseas Union Bank, also located in Singapore (Hoovers, 2002). Wee Cho Yaw, chairman of the bank, and his family own approximately 20 percent of UOB (Hoovers, 2002).  The banking business in Singapore has gone through a period of consolidation brought on by government pressure (Pritchard, nd). The government decided that Singapore could support only two major banks  (Pritchard, nd). The four largest were the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Overseas Union Bank (OUB) and United Overseas Bank (UOB) and these immediately entered  into a round of bids and offers to merge (Pritchard, nd). One of the results was that that Development Bank of Singapore attempted a hostile takeover of the Overseas Union  Bank but the United Overseas Bank topped the bid and succeeded in acquiring the Overseas Union Bank (Pritchard, nd). Thus, there was a merger of these two large banks -  UOB and OUB in 2001. The governments reasoning was that consolidating the banking resources in Singapore would help local banks better establish themselves in the Asian Banking industry as leaders  (Pritchard, nd). Also, the government hoped that these moves would help the banking sector in Singapore compete more successfully with foreign competitors in Singapores banking sector (Pritchard, nd). Following