When it's better to be big.

MALAYSIAN banks had undergone a massive Government-induced consolidation exercise that took two years, in which 54 lenders were to be merged into 10 major groups. Two years on, after the December 31 2000 deadline, the vision of 10 banking groups remains, but in reality there are 11. The holdout is the Utama Banking Group. The group is currently in talks to merge with RHB Bank, and thus far it has been a protracted engagement to say the least, with enough drama for a financial market soap opera. RHB, which is an anchor bank, on its part, has managed to merge with several smaller entities, and the union with UBG would help it leapfrog into one of the major banking groups. UBG, on …