Bank Bira gets award

JAKARTA (JP): The Hong Kong-based magazine Finance Asia has granted Indonesia' publicly-listed Bank Bira "best domestic investment bank" award.

Corporate Financial Advisor of the bank Parveen Gandhi said yesterday it was the first time for an Indonesian bank to be granted such award.

"This is a prestigious award for Bank Bira," Gandhi said adding that Bangkok Bank of Thailand had earlier been awarded a similar award by the magazine.

Bank Bira, which arranged a loan syndication worth US$1.8 billion in 1996, was also ranked in the second place in the international financial market for Indonesian debts by the International Financing Review throughout last year after Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in the first place.

He added that the Cyprus-based Capital Intelligence rating agency recently awarded Bank Bira a rating of A-3 and BB+ for short-term and long-term outlook. (09)