CAHB's payment for Bank Niaga due next week
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Malaysia's Commerce Asset Holding Berhad (CAHB) is slated to pay the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) Rp 1.05 trillion (about US$116 million) by Monday next week following a deal to purchase a 51 percent stake in Bank Niaga from IBRA.
IBRA spokesperson Rohan Hafis said the due date for the Bank Niaga transaction was Nov. 25, when CAHB was to settle the payment in full.
"The closing date for the sales agreement is Nov. 25; they (CAHB) will have until that date," Rohan said over the weekend.
Last week, IBRA chairman Syafruddin Temengung said he was expecting CAHB to pay within that week. However, Rohan said the expectation was based on CAHB's intention and not the agreement.
A payment of that amount could help the rupiah sustain its recent sturdy showing during last week's trading when it advanced by 1.7 percent to 9,035 against the U.S. dollar on Friday.
IBRA sold Bank Niaga earlier this month in its second bank sale after Bank Central Asia (BCA) last March.
The deal has bolstered the agency's total revenue to some Rp 41 trillion, from its targeted Rp 42.6 trillion this year.
Bank Niaga is the country's ninth-largest bank, with assets of over $2.7 billion as of June 30 this year.
Prior to the sale, IBRA owned a 97 percent stake in Niaga after the government injected the bank with recapitalization bonds to offset its bad loans from the 1997 economic crisis.
CHAB is one of Malaysia's leading financial groups, which owns the second-largest bank in the country, Bumiputra-Commerce Bank Berhad.
Selling Bank Niaga is part of a program of wider economic reforms, led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The program calls for returning IBRA's banks to private hands to improve the overall strength of the banking sector.
Next in the pipeline is the sale of Bank Danamon, for which the agency last week secured the approval of the House of Representatives.
Targeted for completion this year, Bank Danamon, however, will unlikely be sold until early next year, officials at the agency and the bank said.