So many investors were stunned when UOB itself decided to merge with Overseas Union Bank to rescue it from a hostile takeover bid by state-owned DBS Group Holdings.
But one person wasn’t the least bit surprised: Tommy Tan, Merrill Lynch’s head of investment banking for Southeast Asia, advised Wee on the 10 billion Singapore dollar ($5.5 billion) takeover last June and now asserts that Wee’s dismissive comments on mergers “set the market up for a surprise - competitors did not expect him to bid on OUB.”
Aptly, at a thank-you dinner last month, Tan gave the famously low-profile Wee a blank book containing two gold-embossed quotations. The first belonged to Wee himself: “In the Singapore context, I do not believe in mergers. Mergers will not work.” The second was from Sun Tzu, legendary author of The Art of War: “Attack him where he is unprepared. Appear where you are not expected.”
