IBRA seeks new Swissasia bid for Lippo

IBRA seeks new Swissasia bid for Lippo

Dow Jones, Jakarta

The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said Swissasia Global has until next on Tuesday to submit a new bid for a 52.05 percent stake in PT Bank Lippo, given its earlier bid was below the floor price set by the agency.

"Swissasia has one week to renew its bid," said Rohan Hafas, spokesman for IBRA, on Tuesday.

Swissasia, a consortium led by Austria's Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich AG, is the only bidder that IBRA has shortlisted for the Bank Lippo stake.

Swissasia's underpriced bid is just the latest of the hitches IBRA has faced in its attempt to offload the Bank Lippo stake.

IBRA canceled October's sale after failing to get good bids and amid allegations that Lippo's founder, the Riady family, was involved in the bidding to regain control of the bank.

Sources close to the deal said Swissasia only bid Bank Lippo at Rp 403 per share, well below IBRA's floor price of Rp 591 per share.

IBRA, a government agency set up to clean up the banking sector after the 1997 financial crisis, hopes to raise $200 million from the current 52 percent stake sale of Bank Lippo.

The agency is racing against time to sell off its remaining assets before the government ends its operations at the end of February.