Bank Surya ties up with Korean bank

Bank Surya ties up with Korean bank

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly-listed Bank Surya, a subsidiary of the Golden Truly Group of Indonesia, will open a joint venture bank with the Commercial Bank of Korea later this year to support economic relations between the two countries.

Sudwikatmono, president commissioner of the Golden Truly Group, AK Ariawan, president of Bank Surya and Seo Kwang Ha, vice president of the Commercial Bank of Korea, signed the joint venture agreement yesterday.

The new bank, with a paid up capital of Rp 100 billion (US$45 million), is 80 percent owned by the Commercial Bank of Korea and 20 percent by Bank Surya.

AK Ariawan said that the joint venture bank, to be named Korea Commercial Bank Surya, is expected to start operation later this year.

Kwang noted that his bank, the third largest bank in Korea in terms of assets, had planned to enter Indonesia since 1991 to support the increasing business activities of Korean investors in Indonesia.

Indonesia is Korea's fourth largest trading partner and Korea is the sixth largest foreign investor in Indonesia.

The 96 year-old Commercial Bank of Korea, with a total asset of US$41.13 billion as of last year, is the 172th largest bank in the world.

The bank operates 322 offices in Korea, seven branch offices in New York, London, Tokyo, Osaka and Singapore, three representative offices in New York, one in Frankfurt and another one on Hong Kong.

Bank Surya, with total assets of Rp 860 billion, was the 26th largest bank in Indonesia in terms of assets as of December.

The bank was set up in Surabaya, East Java, in 1969 and was acquired by Sudwikatmono's Golden Truly Group through its subsidiary PT Dwi Golden Graha in 1987.

In 1989, the bank floated four million common shares, 16 percent of its total shares, to the public through the Jakarta and Surabaya stock exchanges and moved its headquarters to Jakarta in 1993.

Currently Bank Surya operates 29 branch offices in Indonesia and another one on Cook Island. Last year, the bank recorded after tax profits of Rp 7.04 billion, up 41.23 percent from 1993.

The bank's reports show that its current return on equity is 13.01 percent, its return on assets 1.78 percent and its capital adequacy ratio 10.38 percent. (rid)