Bank Bira to arrange $1.2b of syndicated loans

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly-listed Bank Bira expects to arrange US$1.2 billion in syndicated loans for local companies this year, an executive from the bank said yesterday.

Bank Bira's corporate advisor, Parveen Gandhi, said the target would more than double the syndicated loans of $675 million arranged by the bank in 1995.

"In the first semester of this year alone, Bank Bira arranged a total of $600 million in syndicated loans," Gandhi told The Jakarta Post.

He said he was optimistic that the syndicated loans to be arranged by his bank would reach the projected $1.2 billion by the end of this calendar year given the increase in the demand from local companies.

Gandhi said Bank Bira is currently arranging a syndicated loan of around $75 million for PT Great Pineapple of the Gunung Sewu Group and another $25 million for PT Ciputra.

"We hope to sign the agreement on the syndicated loan in August," he said, adding that most of the syndication members will be Singapore-based foreign banks.

Early this year, the International Financial Review selected Bank Bira as one of the top 10 syndicated loan arrangers in Indonesia during 1995.

Gandhi said that in the first semester of this year, Bank Bira arranged syndicated loan facilities for 10 domestic companies. The loan recipients included Medco, Ariawest, Jababeka, Griyamas, Camintel, Pandu Dian, Pacific Metro and Asia Pulp & Paper Company, Gandhi said.

He said the bank booked a net profit of Rp 10.7 billion in the first quarter of this year, far higher than Rp 6.4 billion registered in the same period of last year.

Gandhi said that profit for 1996 is expected to exceed the initial projection of around Rp 54 billion due to an expected increase in the bank's fee-based revenues and the recent sales of rights shares worth Rp 167 billion.(hen)