Bapepam to continue Lippo probe

Bapepam to continue Lippo probe

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) has finished a
two-month investigation into 46 securities companies, allegedly
involved in manipulation of the Bank Lippo share price.

But Bapepam Chairman Herwidayatmo said on Friday that it had
yet to complete the full investigation work as the agency would
now start investigating individual investors linked to the
alleged crime.

He was quoted by detik.com as saying that the new probe would
take at least one month.

He urged the investors to cooperate in the questioning
process, and said force would be used if they refused to answer
their summonses.

The Bapepam investigation is a follow-up action over
allegations that the some securities firms and some individual
investors had been involved in a scam to deliberately push Bank
Lippo shares down.

The lower price was designed to allow Bank Lippo's former
owners, the Riady family, to repurchase a majority stake of the
bank at the expense of the government, which had spent a lot of
money bailing out the bank during the late 1990s financial
crisis, some analysts said.

Previously, the Jakarta Stock Exchange faulted the bank's
management for misleading investors by claiming an unaudited
report as audited. The bank reported in November that it
suffered a net loss of Rp 1.27 trillion for the first three
quarters of 2002, although it earlier said that the bank enjoyed
a net profit of Rp 99 billion for the same period.