Malayan Banking, Malaysia’s biggest lender by assets, offered to buy Singaporean brokerage Kim Eng Holdings in a deal valued at $1.79 billion, accelerating its expansion in Southeast Asia.

Maybank, as the Kuala Lumpur-based company is known, agreed to buy a 44.6% stake in Kim Eng from Yuanta Securities Asia Financial Services and Kim Eng Chairman Ronald Anthony Ooi Thean Yat at $3.10 a share, the companies said in separate statements today. That’s 15% above Kim Eng’s latest price.

 

“Maybank has been trying to create a stronger regional footprint, and this is a short-cut way to its ambitions,” said Lye Thim Loong, who helps manage about US$500 million ($645.9 million) at Avenue Invest in Kuala Lumpur. “It’s a good move.”

 

A takeover would give Maybank stock-broking operations in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The deal would be the largest in the last 12 months in the Asian finance, broking and banking industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

Maybank said it will be required to make an offer for the rest of Kim Eng. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., which owns 29% of Kim Eng, hasn’t decided whether to sell its stake, spokesman Susumu Taroura said in an interview.

 

The takeover is a “great leap forward for us so early in the new year,” Maybank Chairman Megat Zaharuddin Megat Mohd Nor said in the statement. Kim Eng complements Maybank’s existing investment-banking and equities operations, he said.