PermataBank clarifies

PermataBank clarifies

With regard to the news report about PermataBank on Nov. 16,
page 14, which was excerpted by The Jakarta Post from Bloomberg
we would like to thank you for the publication.

However, there are a few matters related to the article that
should be clarified as follows.

Your headline says: Bank Permata 2005 earnings may fall,
official says. It is stated: "Our profit may fall to below 472
billion rupiah (US$47.1 million) this year, said Saptono."

We never made this statement to Bloomberg. We just mentioned
that the bank's profit up to September 2005 was IDR 184 billion
and the net profit up to September 2004 was IDR 489 billion.

We had correspondence with Bloomberg related to the news
report with explanations as follows:

* In response to the question as to why Q3 profit decreased
compared to the previous year, we explained that this was due to
a combination of factors including:
- Investments that the Bank made this year which were reflected
in increase of expenses.
- Loss of IDR 30 billion from Mark-to-Market value of government
bonds.
- Higher provisions for bad debts of approximately IDR 131
billion, which was partially due to the new Bank Indonesia
regulation on asset portfolio reclassification.

* In response to the question as to whether the decrease in Q3
profits compared to the previous year reflects the poor
performance of PermataBank's current management, I explained
that this was not necessarily the case because last year's
results were not exactly an apple-to-apple comparison with this
year's.

I further explained that there were two significant variables
PermataBank enjoyed last year that we could not possibly be
repeated this year. These included the reversal of merger costs
injected by the government during the recap period of around IDR
144 billion which boosted our other operating income and the tax
loss carry-forward situation PermataBank still enjoyed as a
result of the merger/recap three years ago.

IMAM TEGUH SAPTONO, General Manager Corporate Secretary, PermataBank,
Jakarta

Note: Thank you for the clarification.

--Editor