Bank Bira awarded for best investment bank

JAKARTA (JP): Hong Kong-based Finance Asia magazine has presented Indonesia's publicly-listed Bank Bira an award for the "best domestic investment bank" in the Asia Pacific region.

The magazine gave the achievement awards to the region's best banks for their contribution to the development of Asia's capital markets and financial services.

The magazine publisher Micheal Stanhope and production manager Melinda Earsdon presented the award to Bank Bira president Bambang Panutomo at an awards dinner at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Hong Kong on Friday.

"This is the first time for any Indonesian bank to be granted such an award," Bambang said in a statement.

Most of the companies receiving other awards were mainly multinational banks and financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch, Peregrine, Morgan Stanley, Chase Manhattan Bank, UBS, Citibank, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Grenfell and other reputable financial institutions.

Bambang said the award from Finance Asia was a compliment to the ranking done by International Financial Review, another Hong Kong-based magazine, earlier which placed Bank Bira in the second place in the floating rate debt league in Indonesia based on the amount raised.

Bank Bira corporate financial advisor Parveen Gandhi said his bank arranged loan syndications of US$1.8 billion and fixed income papers of $2 billion last year.

He added that during the first two months of this year, the bank had already received mandates of $600 million for loan syndications.

"Bank Bira has maintained its leadership through introducing new diversified products while continuing its strength in existing products," Gandhi said.

Last year, the bank strengthened its business in the new areas of zero coupon bonds, medium term notes, floating rate notes, certificate deposits in addition to commercial papers and loan syndications.

The bank has also become a major player in the foreign exchange market, with an average daily turnover reaching almost $300 million this year, Gandhi said.

Bank Bira, listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange since 1994, recorded a 100 percent increase in unaudited net profit to Rp 60 billion (US$25 million) last year, compared to Rp 30 billion in 1995.

Foreign exchange securities house Asia Equity has also ranked Bank Bira's stock as the sixth best outperformed stock in 1996, with a 59.7 percent gain, out of all listed companies on the Jakarta Stock Exchange. (rid)