Bank Mega eyes BII shares

JAKARTA: Publicly listed Bank Mega is considering buying Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) shares, which will be offered by the government, after it failed to buy Bank Danamon shares previously, according to its president Chaerul Tanjung.

"We are assessing the opportunity to buy the shares," he said, as quoted by detik.com, on the sidelines of Bank Mandiri's public presentation on Wednesday.

He added that although the government would offer Bank Lippo shares before the BII shares, Bank Mega was not interested in buying into Bank Lippo. "We think BII's nature as a retail bank is more like Bank Mega's than that of Bank Lippo's."

However, Bank Mega had not done anything further than considering the acquisition, as the government's plan to divest BII was not imminent, he added. --JP