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A 15.2 percent jump in Bank of East Asia shares may have come on speculation that a Malaysian conglomerate was preparing a bid for the Hong Kong bank, local media reported on Thursday.
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Malaysia's Guoco Group disclosed last week that it had increased its stake in BEA to more than 8 percent, making it the bank's second-largest shareholder after Spain's Criteria CaixaCorp, the South China Morning Post reported.
The 15.2 percent stock jump on Wednesday was BEA's largest for a single day in 11 years, with its market value jumping by more than HK$1.3 billion ($176 million), the newspaper said.
"People think that BEA may somehow come into play," Howard Gorges, a director at South China Brokerage, told the South China Morning Post. "There is a lot of hot money looking for a (target)."
Shares of BEA, a leading local lender, have doubled this year, but are still down 31.2 percent since the end of 2007 after the bank suffered a bruising 2008.
Guoco first disclosed a 6 percent holding in BEA in July, and has gradually increased its stake since then.
The family of BEA Chairman David Li, whose grandfather was a founder of the bank in 1918, collectively own more than 14 percent of the bank.
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