Five bidders compete for Bank Permata
Dadan Wijaksana and Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has short-listed five consortia vying for a majority stake in Bank Permata, allowing them to carry out due diligence investigations into the country's seventh-largest bank by assets during a 30-day period, starting Thursday.
The five consortia, dominated by foreign investors, were filtered out on Tuesday by the Asset Management Company (PPA) from 10 interested groups of investors that had earlier submitted their request for qualification (RFQ) letters.
"These short-listed bidders were chosen based on a thorough examination of their financial strength and condition, good business plans for Permata in the future and high preliminary bids," PPA chairman Mohammad Syahrial told a media gathering here.
The PPA is a government-sanctioned agency in charge of handling assets formerly managed by the now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).
The five are: a consortium of British Standard Chartered Plc. (Stanchart) and Astra International; a consortium of Malaysian- based Malayan Banking Bhd. (Maybank) and state pension fund operator PT Jamsostek; Singapore's United Overseas Bank (UOB); a consortium of Bank Panin and Australia and New Zealand-based ANZ Ltd.; and Malaysia's Commerce Asset-Holding Bhd., which has teamed up with local Bank Bumiputera.
The first consortium is an attempt by Stanchart, which obtains a third of its earnings from Asia, to purchase a local bank.
The five consortia priced a 51 percent stake in the bank at 1.8 times to 2.39 times the book value, Syahrial said.
"However, their bids are just preliminary. We expect them to increase the figures for their final bids after they have completed due diligence later on," he added.
Of the 10 interested groups of investors, two failed to present their initial bids. They are a consortium led by Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), which withdrew from the bidding, and a consortium of Wachofia and Artha Graha, which did deliver its bid but did so 38 minutes late after the Friday afternoon deadline.
Three other consortia -- Swiss First, Bank Mandiri and Bank Buana Indonesia, and British Barclays Bank Plc. and Bank Danamon -- failed to make the list.
PPA deputy chairman Raden Pardede said that the failure of several local investors to make the list was simply due to the higher preliminary bids offered by the others.
The short-listed bidders will have a month, once due diligence has begun, to submit their final bids on Oct. 7.
The government has said it expects to announce the preferred bidder some time in November, to be followed by a test of suitability by the central bank, before finally declaring the winner in the third week of December.
Meanwhile, Permata shares were up Rp 25, ending at Rp 975 on the Jakarta Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
Permata was established in 2002 from the merger of five ailing banks under IBRA control: Bank Bali, Bank Universal, Bank Arthamedia, Bank Prima Express and Bank Patriot.
After the sale of the 51 percent shareholding, the government plans to sell another 20 percent stake to public investors next year, with all the proceeds from the divestment allocated to help finance the 2004 state budget deficit.
The government has a 97.17 percent stake in the publicly listed bank.