IBRA to transfer all unsold assets to state-owned firms
IBRA to transfer all unsold assets to state-owned firms
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said that it
would transfer all remaining unsold assets to new companies
operating under the Office of State Minister of State
Enterprises.
Previously, it was planned that the assets would be taken over
by a holding company under the Ministry of Finance, after IBRA's
termination on Feb. 27, 2004.
"Those new institutions will become state-owned enterprises
(SOEs), or subsidiaries of them, in the form of limited liability
companies," IBRA chairman Syafruddin Temenggung said late on
Friday.
He was speaking to reporters after attending a meeting on the
issue with the Financial Sector Policy Committee -- an agency
which oversees IBRA and consists of senior economic ministers in
the Cabinet.
IBRA's mandate will expire after over five years of huge tasks
restructuring and selling assets that it took over from the
insolvent banking sector, which was the hardest hit by the
devastating 1997-1998 financial crisis.
In total, the agency took over some US$60 billion worth of
assets from ailing banks or their former owners. It was given a
mandate to sell the assets to raise cash and thus help finance
the state budget, which has continued to be heavily burdened by
the huge cost of bailing out troubled banks.
While it has sold most of the assets -- namely non-performing
loans, fixed-assets, and shares in banks -- there are also some
assets that have yet to be sold so far.
Syafruddin said that the agency would inject capital into the
planned companies (two or three) before eventually handing them
over to the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises in
January next year.
"We will move fast. We expect the handing over process will be
completed by mid January," he said, adding that the Ministry of
Finance would filter out property assets that could be used for
the government's purposes.
"The selection was to see whether there are assets, say office
complexes, that the government could use," Syafruddin added.
Elsewhere, with IBRA's terms expired, the government has also
planned to set up a special unit under the Ministry of Finance
that will take over the role of IBRA in implementing the
government's blanket guarantee program on bank deposits.
The unit, to be called the banking guarantee implementation
unit (UP3), would operate on a temporary basis -- pending the
planned establishment of a deposit guarantee agency (LPS), which
needs more time to be set up as the government has yet to finish
drafting the law as the legal basis for the agency.
The forming of the UP3 only requires a ministerial decree as
its legal basis.
eyebox
List of IBRA's unsold assets
1. Minority share ownerships in BCA, Bank Danamon, BII, Niaga and
other banks.
2. About Rp 43 trillion worth of bad loan assets, the majority of
which come from five companies -- textile giant Texmaco (Rp 27
trillion), aircraft maker Dirgantara Indonesia (Rp 2 trillion),
Bali Nirwana Resort (Rp 2 trillion), Tirtamas Group (Rp 3
trillion), Dipasena (Rp 4 trillion) -- are still unsold.
3. Trillions of rupiah worth of smaller properties.