HSBC Extends Deadline on Republic Offer

shareholders of Luxembourg-based Safra Republic Holdings SA to tender their shares as part of the London bank's $10.3 billion deal for Republic New York Corp.

Republic New York owns 49% of Safra Republic. HSBC has offered to buy the 51% of Safra Republic not owned by Republic New York.

Edmond Safra is an honorary chairman of Republic and owns 29% of it.

The deal was disrupted Sept. 1 when one of Republic's clients, money management firm Princeton Economics International, was charged with bilking Japanese investors of as much as $1 billion. The president of the futures unit of Republic's securities division was dismissed amid allegations that he wrote letters to Japanese investors wrongly affirming that Princeton's accounts were in order.

The extension for Safra Republic shareholders was necessary because the May 10 agreement set a Sept. 30 deadline for acceptance of the offer.

HSBC has postponed the takeover until it receives the results of an investigation into whether the Princeton affair was an isolated case or represented a deep-seated problem within the bank.

No deadline was set for the tender of Republic New York's shares, but a special stockholders' meeting on the proposed acquisition that had been set for Sept. 9 has been postponed until Oct. 12.

HSBC said Tuesday that 27.5 million shares of 36 million needed to take control of Safra Republic already have been tendered.

Additional reporting was done by David Weidner.

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