Bank Mandiri to meet investors on $300m sale
Bank Mandiri to meet investors on $300m sale
Bloomberg
Jakarta
PT Bank Mandiri will contact investors from today as it
prepares to raise as much as $300 million in Indonesia's biggest
initial share sale since November 1996, said a banker involved in
the sale.
Investors will be contacted for two weeks and the state-owned
bank will follow with presentations in Singapore, Hong Kong,
Europe and the U.S. from June 9 to June 23, the banker said. The
government will decide the final size and price of the sale after
meeting investors, though for now it's sticking to a revised plan
to sell at least a 15 percent stake, down from the 30 percent
originally targeted, the banker said.
Indonesia is close to completing the sale of PT Bank Danamon
and this week detailed plans to sell PT Bank Rakyat, PT Lippo Bank
and PT Bank Internasional Indonesia in the second half of this
year. It's selling lenders seized in a 1997-1998 financial crisis
to help plug an expected $4.1 billion deficit, though it has a
track record of failing to meet its asset-sale schedules.
"We believe foreign investors have started to look at
Indonesian banks," said Michael Tjoajadi, who helps manage the
equivalent of US$120 million in funds at PT Schroders Investment
Management Indonesia.
Indonesia may be drawing investors encouraged by the May 12
upgrade of the sovereign's long-term foreign currency rating to B-
from CCC+ by Standard & Poor's, he said. Bank Mandiri, formed in
1998 from the combination of four failed banks, had its debt
raised to the same rating, six levels below investment grade.
ABN Amro Rothschild, Credit Suisse First Boston Inc. and PT
Danareksa, Indonesia's largest investment bank, are arranging the
sale. Credit Suisse spokesman Tom Grimmer declined to comment
while ABN Amro Asia spokeswoman Lim Li Koon could not be reached
for comment.
A sale of a 15 percent stake for about $300 million would
value the bank at about 1.2 times Mandiri's end-2002 book value of
Rp 14 trillion ($1.68 billion), the banker said. That's about
the same price the government obtained in its sale of controlling
stakes in PT Bank Niaga and PT Bank Central Asia last year.
Trading of the shares on the Jakarta Stock Exchange is
targeted for early July, the banker said.