Admadjaya still controls Bank Danamon

JAKARTA (JP): The Admadjaya family said yesterday they remained the majority shareholder of the publicly listed Bank Danamon which was recently battered by rumors of clearing loss.

"We are still the majority shareholder in the bank and don't have any plan to sell our stake," the bank's chief commissioner Usman Admadjaya was quoted by Antara as saying after the company's extraordinary shareholders' meeting.

A noted Indonesian businessman was rumored to have gained a significant amount of the bank's shares in return for his financial assistance to solve the bank's financial problem.

Usman also denied that his bank, one of the country's major commercial banks, had suffered a liquidity problem due to a loss in foreign exchange transactions.

Bank Damamon neither suffered a clearing loss nor a loss from foreign exchange transactions, he said.

The Admadjaya family owns a 64.91 percent stake in the bank, while the remaining stake belongs to the public.

"We were not in a position to suffer a clearing loss. You can ask Bank Indonesia," said Yusuf Arbianto, a commissioner of the bank.

"Foreign currency transactions is not my hobby. The rumor is baseless," Usman said, denying there was a massive pull out at the bank's branches.

He admitted that some customers recently panicked due to the decrease in the rupiah's value and withdrew their money from the bank. But he said the bank could immediately overcome the situation with its own resources. (jsk)