Bank Bira's pre-tax profit quadruples

JAKARTA (JP): Bank Bira, the 27th largest private national bank in the country in terms of assets, announced yesterday a before-tax profit of Rp 17.3 billion (US$7.9 million) for the first nine months of this year, over four times higher than the same period last year.

"Judging from this performance, we are confident in surpassing the total pre-tax profit projection of Rp 20.7 billion for the whole year that we made during our July initial public offering," Bank Bira's president, Frans Limas, told a news conference here.

The bank, which recorded total assets of Rp 927.5 billion as of September, went public in July by selling 20 million shares or 25 percent of its total shares at Rp 2,400 apiece.

The bank's principal strategy, according to Limas, is to focus operations in four major cities -- Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and Medan.

The bank said its fee-based operations have also achieved impressive results since their launching in 1992.

"We are now a market leader in loan syndications and commercial papers," Limas said, adding that the bank had arranged more than 30 commercial paper issues and five loan syndications.

The bank's report showed it set aside 0.8 percent of earning assets for provisions for non-performing loans, as against the 0.5 percent requirement set by Bank Indonesia (the central bank).

"Actual bad loans amounted to only 0.1 percent, which reflects the good quality of our assets," Limas added.

A director of the bank, Bambang Panutomo, added that Bank Bira would soon issue US$20 million in floating-rate notes in Hong Kong and Singapore to raise fresh funds for export financing.

"The issue will be arranged by Merrill Lynch," Panutomo said.

The bank also reported that its net interest margin rose to 5.76 percent, its capital adequacy ratio to 14.82 percent and its pre-tax earning per share to Rp 289.(rid)