Korea, Temasek keen to know terms of Merrill takeover-exec
SEOUL, Sept 17 (Reuters) - South Korean and Singaporean sovereign wealth funds are still awaiting conversion terms of their Merrill Lynch MER.N shares into Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) stock, Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) said on Wednesday.
Bank of America agreed on Monday to pay 0.8595 of its common stock for each Merrill share, valuing the U.S. investment bank at $50 billion, as credit market turmoil forced a wave of consolidation in the financial sector and prompted Lehman Brothers to file for bankrupcty protection.
"We don't know the terms at which we will be able to convert our shares into Bank of America," KIC Chief Executive Chin Youngwook told reporters, according to a media pool report.
"Technical things have not been decided. Temasek is also anxious to know," Chin said, referring to one of Singapore's two sovereign funds that also invested heavily in the U.S. investment bank.
He added that he expected Bank of America to invite KIC to hold a meeting for details.
KIC owns a 4.7 percent stake in Merrill after it converted $2 billion worth of preferred Merrill stocks into common shares at $27.5 per share in July in a move to cut losses from its first investment in a U.S. bank. The fund is the fourth-largest shareholder in Merrill.
Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL] pumped over $5 billion into Merrill, becoming the largest shareholder in the U.S. bank with more than a 10 percent stake.
Temasek has so far declined to comment on what it will do with its shareholding in Merrill. The $131 billion fund's average purchase price is between $23 and $24 a share, according to people knowledge of the purchase.
Bank of America shares last closed at $29.55.
(Reporting by Kim Yeon-hee in SEOUL and Saeed Azhar in SINGAPORE; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
