IBRA receives another $1.2b in bad loans from state banks

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) has recently received an additional Rp 8.5 trillion (US$1.2 billion) in nonperforming loans (NPLs) from three state banks.

The agency also expects to get another Rp 16.5 trillion in nonperforming loans from state bank Bank Mandiri, according to IBRA loan workout group leader Andreas A. Bunanta on Thursday.

Speaking in a news conference, Andreas said that the three state banks were Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN), Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

With the additional Rp 8.5 trillion of NPLs, IBRA now controls a total of approximately Rp 115 trillion in bad loans from state banks that must be restructured.

Andreas said that BRI transferred Rp 5.8 trillion of NPLs owed by 23 debtors, BNI Rp 1.7 trillion owed by 41 debtors, and BTN Rp 984.6 billion owed by 25 debtors.

Among the bad debts recently transferred to IBRA were those owed by companies in the textile and engineering Texmaco Group, he said.

Some Rp 2.5 trillion of Texmaco debt owed to Bank BRI and Rp 500 billion owed to Bank BTN were transferred to IBRA, raising the group's total NPLs under the agency's management to Rp 4.4 trillion.

Andreas said that none of the Texmaco loans from Bank BNI were transferred to the agency.

Texmaco has recently been hit by charges that it owes trillions of rupiah in bad loans to Bank BNI. The disbursement of the loans to Texmaco allegedly involved former president Soeharto and former Bank Indonesia governor Soedradjad Djiwandono.

Andreas said that the NPLs to be transferred from Bank Mandiri were owed by 275 debtors.

Bank Mandiri is the largest state bank, resulting from the merger of four state banks including Bank Dagang Negara, Bank Bumi Daya, Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo) and Bank Ekspor Impor Indonesia.

IBRA currently controls over Rp 250 trillion in NPLs including those from state banks, nationalized banks, closed banks and recapitalized banks.

Andreas said that the loans from state banks were only those falling under the category 5 loans, that is, non-performing loans greater than Rp 5 billion each.

He said that NPLs below Rp 5 billion were being managed by each state bank.

Andreas said that the agency had so far been able to restructure some Rp 26 trillion of the Rp 250 trillion NPLs. He said that this was the target set for the current fiscal year ending in March.

IBRA has been criticized for being too slow in their efforts to recover bad loans, most of which are owed by giant companies belonging to influential people including the family of Soeharto.

The government officially installed Cacuk Sudarijanto on Thursday as the new chairman of IBRA, replacing Glenn S. Jusuf.

Cacuk, who was previously deputy chairman of IBRA, said that the government decided to dismiss Glenn partly because of the agency's slowness in restructuring the bad loans. (rei)