BDNI plans to expand business network abroad

JAKARTA (JP): Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI), a private domestic bank listed on the Jakarta and Surabaya Stock exchanges, will establish new branches domestically and abroad, implement an automatic banking system and establish a venture capital firm.

The bank's president, Sjamsul Nursalim, told reporters after its annual shareholder meeting here yesterday that the bank will establish 20 new branches nationwide, including one branch in New York and one representative office in Manila by the end of the year.

The bank currently has 137 branch offices around the country and three branch offices in Los Angeles, the Cook Islands, and the Cayman Islands.

Sjamsul said the use of an automatic SMART banking system will be expanded from 17 to all of the bank's branch offices by 1995.

He said BDNI also plans to establish a venture capital firm in cooperation with Prudential Asset Management Asia Ltd., a subsidiary of Prudential Insurance Company of the United States, and the International Finance Corporation, an affiliate of the World Bank, this year.

The executive said the expansion program would be financed by some of the bank's retained profit, an equity of Rp 586.5 billion (US$271.28 million) derived from the sales of rights shares last December and a $38 million syndication loan generated from the European market.

Sjamsul said the bank's after-tax profit increased by 27.6 percent from Rp 48.23 billion in 1992 to Rp 61.54 billion last year. It's total assets grew by 43.5 percent from Rp 4.28 trillion to Rp 6.14 trillion.

He also said the company had received funds from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support its export-oriented businesses, from the World Bank to support agricultural development projects and from the Export-Import Bank of Japan to be channeled to small and medium-scale export-oriented companies in Indonesia.

A director of the company, RMT Hariandja, said the shareholders had approved a plan to distribute cash dividends of Rp 100 per share.

Hariandja said Rp 14.62 billion of last year's after-tax profits would be retained to strengthen the company's capital structure and to finance its expansion program.

Hariandja said that the shareholders had also agreed to appoint Michael Lukman Sutanto, the bank's current general manager, as the new director, in addition to the current six members of its board of directors.(02)