Korea helps IBRA with asset disposal program

Korea helps IBRA with asset disposal program

JAKARTA (JP): The Korea Asset Management Corporation (KAMCO)
agreed here on Tuesday to help the Indonesian Bank Restructuring
Agency (IBRA) sell the assets it has received from the former
owners of the country's closed and recapitalized banks.

KAMCO executive director Cheong Hong Kim said his office would
share with IBRA some of its experience in managing distressed
assets so as to help the latter accelerate the debt restructuring
program.

"Yes, we'll definitely help IBRA to sell its assets. We'd like
to share the expertise and experience we gained from our own
asset disposal program," he told journalists after the signing of
a collaboration agreement between the two agencies.

KAMCO is an agency established by the South Korean government
to buy, restructure and sell non-performing loans (NPLs) from the
Korean financial institutions which collapsed during the
country's economic crisis.

Cheong said KAMCO had so far restructured 46 percent, or about
US$31 billion, of the total $67 billion of NPLs and sold $5.5
billion worth of assets in both international and domestic
markets as of June.

Under the agreement, KAMCO and IBRA will share experience and
expertise in asset disposal management through a human resources
exchange program and workshops, said IBRA chairman Cacuk
Sudarijanto.

"We'll also cooperate in join marketing to resolve the problem
of distressed assets in both countries so that value can be
realized at the optimum price," he said.

According to Cacuk, KAMCO, the first foreign debt
restructuring agency accepting IBRA's offer of collaboration,
would also provide expertise in repackaging assets in order to
boost their market value.

IBRA has received some Rp 600 trillion in assets transferred
from the owners of ailing and closed banks as repayment for the
massive emergency funds they received from the government at the
peak of the country's economic crisis in early 1998.

The agency is expected to raise some Rp 6.5 trillion from the
disposal of the assets during the April-December 2000 fiscal
year.

Some Rp 250 trillion out of the Rp 600 trillion assets managed
by IBRA are non-performing loans (NPLs) transferred by the
country's ailing banking sector. (cst)