Swissasia retains Bank Lippo management
Swissasia retains Bank Lippo management
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Swissasia Global, the new controlling owner of publicly listed
Bank Lippo, has decided in an extraordinary shareholders meeting
to retain Joseph Luhukay as president and Mochtar Riady as
chairman of the board of commissioners.
The meeting was held on Wednesday, hours after the Indonesian
Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and Swissasia signed the sales
and purchase agreement (SPA) for a 52.02 percent stake valued at
Rp 1.205 trillion (US$142.7 million), making the foreign
consortium the majority shareholder of the country's 11th largest
bank by assets.
Rainer Silhavy, regional general manager of Austria's
Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG (RZB), which leads the
consortium along with Swissfirst Bank AG, was appointed vice
chairman of the board.
Other investors involved in the consortium are fund managers
Matrix Asia Holding Ltd., ASM Investment Ltd. and Ferrell
Opportunity Capital Ltd.
In a written statement, Silhavy said Swissasia had
specifically asked Mochtar to remain chairman of the board.
"Swissasia recognizes that the founding fathers of the bank
have a history of success in building banks in this country," he
said.
The Riady family founded and was the former majority
shareholder of Bank Lippo. IBRA, a government agency, acquired a
majority stake in the bank after it injected around Rp 3.75
trillion in bonds to bail out the bank from the devastating
impact of the 1997-98 financial crisis. The agency sold the
controlling stake to private investors to raise cash and help
finance the state budget deficit.
Other retained commissioners are I Nyoman Tjager, Djisman
Simanjuntak -- rector of the Prasetya Mulya Business School --
and Roy Edu Tirtadji, a long-time associate of Mochtar.
New commissioners are Jan Cherim of ING, James Ng, a Hong Kong
banker, and Chris Williams, an attorney from Richard Butler Hong
Kong.
As for the board of directors, new faces include Lee Heok Seng
of RZB and Mark McKenny of ING.
Their appointments are not yet effective, pending a fit and
proper test by Bank Indonesia.
For the 2004 to 2006 period, Swissasia aims to focus on
promoting transparency, good corporate governance and risk
management, as well as expanding services, especially consumer
and small- and medium-enterprise banking, said Silhavy.
With the switch in ownership, IBRA now holds a mere 2.88
percent stake in Bank Lippo, while public investors own 35.5
percent and Lippo E-Net, controlled by the Riady family, 9.6
percent.
Bank Lippo, with assets of Rp 22.4 trillion, has 379 branches
across Indonesia and employs some 6,000 people.