No manipulation in BII's share trade: Bapepam
No manipulation in BII's share trade: Bapepam
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
While some "procedural violations" occurred in the trading of
Bank International Indonesia's (BII) shares last year, none could
be categorized as illegal manipulation, the country's share
market watchdog said.
The Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) said it had
found no proof that traders of BII shares had deliberately driven
up the bank's share price for personal gain from October to
December last year.
"We did not find enough evidence, as required by existing
regulations, to indicate manipulation in the trade of BII's
shares in that period," Robinson Simbolon, head of Bapepam's
legal division, said on Saturday as reported by detik.com.
However, despite the absence of manipulation, Robinson said
Bapepam imposed Rp 1 billion fine to Transpacific Securindo,
which was actively involved in BII shares trading during the
three-month period, for violating existing regulations.
The company was the arranger and executor from Genius Pacific
Ltd. and Coral Investment Ltd., companies based in Singapore and
Hong Kong respectively.
"The company's action had the potential to disrupt the
investment climate in capital markets," Robinson said.
He did not specify what regulations the company had broken.
Robinson was announcing the results of an investigation into
the trading, which was started in January this year.
The allegations centered on suspicions certain parties had
intentionally put upward pressure on the bank's share price,
ahead of plans by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA)
to sell a significant stake in BII.
IBRA, which controls the bank, launched a block sale of a
17.43 percent stake on Dec. 16 with the price pegged at Rp 90 a
share, based on its performance in the past months.
Previously, the bank's share price was far above the IBRA's
set price. In October, it reached Rp 145 a share before hovering
around Rp 95 a share in the last days prior to the sale.
As allegations of illegal practices mounted, Bapepam and the
Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) launched an investigation into the
affair, questioning dozens of brokerage and securities firms.
None of these firms have been named.
IBRA collected around Rp 750 billion in proceeds from the
sale.
The block sale represented the second round of sales for a
stake in the bank -- which is among the country's top 10 banks
with assets of more than Rp 36 trillion (US$4.1 billion) and 1.1
million customers. It followed the sale of a 51 percent stake in
the bank to a consortium led by South Korea's Kookmin Bank and
Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. in October.