IBRA won't cancel Indomobil sale

IBRA won't cancel Indomobil sale

Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said on Thursday
that it would not cancel the newly concluded sale of a
controlling block of shares in publicly listed car assembler PT
Indomobil Sukses Internasional to a Trimegah-led consortium,
arguing the transaction had followed normal procedures.

IBRA Chairman I Putu Ary Suta insisted that the transaction
had been completed after a fair and competitive bidding process.

"The Indomobil disposal cannot be annulled, because (in
finalizing the deal) we have followed the current system and
procedures," he said, adding that the official signing of the
deal would take place in one or two days' time.

Ary Suta was responding to earlier calls from Mar'ie Muhammad,
head of the Oversight Committee, the agency's watchdog, for an
audit of the transaction amid reports that the buyer of the
shares had been the Salim Group, the founder of the car maker.

The government has banned Salim from repurchasing its assets
from IBRA.

The agency received various assets from former bank owners,
including the Salim Group, to repay their debts to the
government.

IBRA sold a 73.63 percent stake in Indomobil, the country's
second-largest car marker, on Dec. 10 to a consortium led by
Trimegah, one of the country's largest securities firms, at Rp
624.5 per share.

The relatively low price has raised concern, particularly as
the Indomobil shares had a price tag of Rp 2,500 per unit when
Salim transferred the company to IBRA in 1999.

The sale process was completed within two weeks. Such a short
period also raised suspicion that Salim was the real buyer,
because as a founder of Indomobil it basically did not need much
time to complete the due diligence process.

It was also discovered that one of the clauses in the Trimegah
purchasing agreement stipulated that the buyer was entitled to
sell Indomobil to any interested party after two years.

Elsewhere, before making the decision on the Indomobil deal,
Ary Suta had first discussed the decision with his team in the
agency, along with other related parties, including PT Holdiko
Perkasa and its financial adviser.

PT Holdiko is in charge of overseeing the sale of assets taken
over by IBRA from the Salim Group.

"And I have not seen any irregularities at any stage of the
process," he told reporters.

As for the low share price, Ary simply blamed it on
unfavorable market conditions.

"Our financial adviser even said that if we put the deal off
until next year, the price would probably be as high as it is
now," he said, without elaborating.

IBRA has raised around Rp 27.98 trillion in cash this year,
which is slightly higher than the Rp 27 trillion figure targeted
by the government to help finance the state budget deficit.

The bulk of the proceeds come from the sale of assets
transferred by the Salim Group. But many suspected that the Salim
Group was behind most of the transactions.

IBRA officials, however, have often played down such concern,
pointing out that the government could cancel the transaction if
it later found out that the buyer was linked to the Salim Group.

But still, it would be impossible to track down the real buyer
if Salim used a nominee to repurchase the assets.