Salim keeps BCA majority stake
JAKARTA (JP): The country's top business tycoon Liem Sioe Liong, also known as Sudono Salim, still retains a 70 percent stake in Bank Central Asia (BCA), the country's largest private bank.
BCA president Abdullah Ali also said yesterday that Sigit Hajojudanto and Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, children of former president Soeharto, held a 30 percent stake at the bank.
"BCA is still 70 percent owned by the Salim Group, while the remaining 30 percent shares are owned by former president Soeharto's children," Abdullah said.
He said the Salim Group's 70 percent share in BCA was owned by Salim, one of Soeharto's closest cronies, and his sons Anthony Salim and Andre Salim.
He also denied rumors that Salim had recently died from illness in the United States.
He said Salim had been under medical treatment in Los Angeles over the past three weeks, accompanied by family members, but that he would soon return to Indonesia.
"Anthoy Salim is scheduled to arrive back in Jakarta today (yesterday)," he was quoted by Antara as saying.
BCA became one of the main targets during Jakarta's May 14 riots when city residents looted and burned thousands of buildings to express anger toward the government following the killing of four student protesters by security forces.
"The rioters demolished 122 of our branch offices. We have yet to calculate the total losses," Abdullah said, adding that the damages and looting of its automatic teller machines (ATMs) totaled at least Rp 3 billion (US$280,000).
BCA depositors have been withdrawing their funds following the rioting and departure of Soeharto from power.
Abdullah called on BCA depositors to remain calm since their money was secure under the guarantee of the central bank despite the riot.
He said BCA had reduced the withdrawal limit for its ATMs due to cash-flow problems in obtaining funds from the central bank in the wake of the riot.
"It takes a lot of time to obtain money from the central bank now. We reduced the maximum amount of money which customers can withdraw from our ATMs so that they all can equally obtain their money," he said.
Abdullah, however, declined to state the amount of liquidity credits the bank was forced to take from Bank Indonesia to keep it afloat.
Banking sources said if depositors continued to withdraw their funds from BCA much longer, the bank could be taken over by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) because of the amount of liquidity credits it was receiving from the central bank.
The move would likely dilute Salim's stake in the bank.
IBRA was set up by the government on Jan. 27 to closely supervise banks with liquidity problems in an effort to nurse them back to health.
Forty banks were initially placed under IBRA's supervision, but the agency later discharged eight banks, including three state banks, one provincial development bank and four private banks. (jsk)