Bank Bali to issue warrants

Bank Bali to issue warrants

JAKARTA (JP): The publicly listed Bank Bali plans to issue warrants as the "sweetener" for its rights shares soon to be offered to existing shareholders, a bank executive says.

Muliadi Hendri, the vice president of Bank Bali, said the planned rights shares and warrants would be issued to strengthen the bank's capital structure.

"The issuance of the rights shares is theoretically designed to meet the present need for capital and the warrants are to meet future capital needs," he told journalists on Thursday night.

Dian Wirjawan, an executive of PT Kapita Sekurindo, a company which will manage and underwrite the issuance of the rights shares and warrants, said that the prices of rights shares and warrants were being formulated.

The issuance of the warrants, which will become the first warrant instrument to be listed on the Indonesian capital market, has not yet been registered with the Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam), he said.

"We hope there will be no obstacles impeding the issuance of the warrants," responded Dian, when he was asked if Bapepam had approved the bank's warrant offering.

PT Modernland Realty, a real estate developer listed on the Jakarta and Surabaya stock exchanges, planned late last year to issue detachable warrants to sweeten its mandatory convertible bonds.

The plan to issue warrants was, however, canceled due to the lack of support from Bapepam, which considered the issuance to be too speculative for the investing public. (hen)