Kim Eng Holdings, a Singaporean brokerage, surged to a record and Malayan Banking gained after Malaysia’s biggest lender offered to buy the company for $1.79 billion to speed up expansion in Southeast Asia.

Shares of Kim Eng jumped 12% to $3.03 at 10:48 a.m. in Singapore trading, set to close at an all-time high. Maybank, as the Kuala Lumpur-based company is known, added 0.7% to 9.07 ringgit, headed for its highest close since Nov. 16.

 

Maybank agreed to buy a 44.6% stake in Kim Eng from Taiwan’s 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 yesterday. That’s a 37% premium to the stock’s average price over the month to yesterday. Maybank is required to make an offer for the rest of Kim Eng, they said.

 

The premium is “justified on grounds that it accelerates Maybank’s investment banking build-out in Asean as well as Kim Eng’s wider presence and strong position in the region,” David Chong, an analyst at RHB Research Institute, said in a report today. He kept his “outperform” rating on Maybank.