Lambert ups Mashill stake

JAKARTA (JP): Belgium's Bank Brussels Lambert SA has bought another 3.20 million shares of publicly listed Bank Mashill Utama to increase its stake in the Indonesian bank.

Bank Mashill's president A.T Windoe said yesterday that with the new purchase, the Belgium bank raised its Mashill shares to 40.19 million shares or 10.8 percent of total shares.

He said the Belgium bank bought 18.49 million of Bank Mashill shares as part of a strategic alliance with the Indonesian bank.

Bank Mashill, which was founded in 1989 by the Karta Wijaya family, booked Rp 1.67 trillion assets by the end of June. Its net profit for this year's first half jumped by 57.28 percent to Rp 16.09 billion, from Rp 10.23 billion in the same period last year. (08)