Peregrine's chief blames RI

Peregrine's chief blames RI

NEW YORK (AFP): The chief of failed Hong Kong bank Peregrine Investments Holdings blamed its collapse on the Indonesian government in an interview with Newsweek magazine

"As things began to unravel, Indonesia did all the wrong things," Peregrine chairman Philip Tose says in the U.S. magazine's latest international edition due out Monday.

"The main problem was that Indonesia was just unable to implement measures that gave any degree of confidence to the marketplace, and in particular to the Indonesian marketplace."

Peregrine, Asia's top investment bank, became another casualty of the region's deepening financial crisis when the nine-year-old company filed for liquidation on Jan. 12.

Part of Peregrine's troubles stem from factors such as bad timing, Tose says. But he argues the biggest blow came in December in Indonesia -- Peregrine's softest financial flank -- when Indonesian bonds were downgraded from investment grade to junk status.