First test for BCA bidders to finish within a month: IBRA
First test for BCA bidders to finish within a month: IBRA
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said on
Wednesday it expected to conclude the first of the two-stage
tests on the final bidders for Bank Central Asia (BCA) in less
than a month.
However, IBRA chairman I Putu Gede Ary Suta was still in the
dark as to when a winner would be announced, as some bidders had
yet to pass separate tests conducted by Bank Indonesia.
"IBRA wants to finish the drop dead test as soon as possible,"
he told reporters after a meeting with senior economic ministers.
The so-called drop dead test is the first of two tests where
bidders must meet all IBRA requirements, or be ejected from the
competition.
In the second test, the bidders' reputations, their plans for
BCA, and, most of all, their offer prices will be used to
determine the winner.
Asked whether the first test could be concluded within a
month, Ary Suta responded,"We're expecting it to be sooner than
that."
Four of the original nine bidders submitted their final bids
last Monday, opening the door to the last stage in the almost
two-year effort to return BCA to private ownership.
The four bidders who submitted their bids on Monday were the
British based Standard Chartered Bank Plc. consortium, the Bank
Mega consortium, the Farallon Capital consortium, and the GKBI
consortium.
IBRA had reportedly planned to announce a winner two weeks
after Monday's deadline for the final bids, but must now wait for
Bank Indonesia to conclude its tests on some of the bidders.
IBRA has refused to say when it would be able to announce the
winner.
Last Monday should also have been the deadline for bidders to
have submitted all of the completed documents that Bank Indonesia
needed for the test.
"Several bidders haven't submitted their documents. We expect
them to complete the documents soon," said Bank Indonesia
Governor Sjahril Sabirin.
State Minister for State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi made
reference to one of the slow bidders, saying that last minute
changes in the Standard Chartered consortium was impeding Bank
Indonesia's work.
The British bank was short of bidding partners just three
weeks before Monday's final bid deadline.
In its release announcing the final bidders, IBRA said that
Standard Chartered was planning a consortium with the Government
of Singapore Corp. Pte. Ltd, Prudential Plc and PT Berca
Indonesia.
Some say that the government is leaning in favor of Standard
Chartered, which in 1999 was forced out of a deal to acquire Bank
Bali after a politically linked scandal erupted in the bank.
The announcement of the four final bidders has earned the
government praise from analysts, and has helped allay suspicions
that BCA's former owner, the Salim Group, may still be among
them.
The group is banned from buying back BCA after mismanagement
led to a bail-out by the state worth billions of U.S. dollars.
A Bank Indonesia release on Wednesday said bidders must
present documents that, among other things, identified the
sources of funding for BCA's acquisition.
Governor Sjahril added that some bidders had yet to sign the
so-called comfort letters -- promises to provide shore-up capital
for BCA should the bank suffer from a liquidity shortage.
Often mistakenly called a fit and proper test, Bank Indonesia
said its administrative selection and interviews should take no
longer than 30 days to complete.
Sjahril suggested that the central bank and IBRA had agreed on
a deadline for the completion of these tests.
But Ary Suta and Laksamana threw the ball back into Bank
Indonesia's court, saying they would wait for the central bank's
tests to be completed.