Two leading Japanese financial services institutions, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and ORIX Corporation, have raised their stakes in ACLEDA Bank as they acquired the entire stake of Jardine Strategic Holdings (JSH) in Cambodia's leading commercial bank.

ACLEDA announced on August 24 that SMBC took 6% of JSH's 12.25%, while ORIX acquired the remaining 6.25% following an approval from the National Bank of Cambodia, the country's central bank. With these acquisitions, SMBC will remain the third largest shareholder in ACLEDA with 18.25% holding, while ORIX becomes the fourth largest shareholder with a stake of 12.25%.

SMBC managing director and head of Asia-Pacific division Shosuke Mori says the additional investment will accelerate SMBC's efforts to realize its Asia-centric strategy and enable the bank to serve diverse customers' needs through extending its network to fast-growing emerging markets.

For ORIX, the additional investment in ACLEDA will give it access to countries where its Japanese competitors do not have operations, says Moody's Investors Service. These countries include Cambodia and neighbouring Myanmar where ACLEDA established a microfinance company in 2012, and Laos, where ACLEDA established a bank in 2008.

ORIX, Moody's adds, will use this opportunity as a foothold to pursue business opportunities in the region using the financial services experience it has cultivated in Asia. It estimates that ORIX will book about 1.5 billion yen (US$12.22 million) in pre-tax income annually from its stake in ACLEDA, which it expects to grow as ACLEDA expands.

For SMBC, Moody's estimates that SMBC will book more than 2 billion yen in pre-tax income annually from its stake in ACLEDA.

In June this year, ACELDA announced that it injected an additional US$40.19 million capital into the bank, bringing its total registered capital to about US$265.73 million.

ACLEDA president and group managing director in Channy says the capital injection is designed to strengthen the bank's competitiveness in line of the Asean market integration by the end of 2015 and to fund its branch expansion at home and abroad and to deploy electronic bank infrastructure.