Three consortia vie for Bank Lippo

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said on Tuesday that three consortia consisting of 18 local and foreign firms in total had submitted preliminary bids for a 52 percent stake in Bank Lippo, which has been put up for sale.

IBRA chairman Syafruddin Temenggung said the consortia were Eurocapital Peregrine Securities, Platinum Securities Company Ltd. and Triton Advisory Pte. Ltd.

Syafruddin added that the agency would name the winning bidders early November.

The government through the agency holds a 54.9 percent stake in the publicly listed Bank Lippo.

The first consortium is comprised of Singapore's Eurocapital Asia Ltd., Batavia Services Fund II, the Philippines' Exports and Industry Bank, and Euro Growth Fund.

The second groups together eight companies: Summit Investment Ltd., Asia Financial Holdings Ltd., Platinum Investment Holding Ltd., Platinum Securities International Inc., Platinum Investments Pte., Granfort Holdings Ltd., Winpool Ltd. and Palette Enterprises Ltd.

The third consortium consists of Swiss Asia Global, Swiss First Bank AG, Swissfirst Opportunities Anlagegesellschaft, VP Ventures Ltd., Matrix Capital Partners and Ferell Opportunity Capital Ltd.

The government plans to sell a number of banks this year and next, as part of efforts to raise cash to help finance the state budget deficit, as well as luring credible investors in the banking sector, which could in turn revive public confidence in the sector, badly shattered by the banking crisis in late 1990s.

The government, through IBRA, became the majority owner in several banks after injecting massive amounts of bailout funds into the banks in the wake of the late 1990s financial crisis.

IBRA's job is to nurse the banks back to health and then return them to private hands through a divestment process.

Aside from Lippo, IBRA plans to sell its majority stake in Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) this year, while Bank Permata is to follow suit next year.

In the last two years, the government has sold its majority stakes in Bank Danamon, Bank Niaga, Bank Central Asia (BCA).

Other than IBRA, the public (35.5 percent) and Lippo E-Net (9.6 percent) are also the bank's shareholders.

As of May, Lippo has a total of Rp 22.5 trillion in assets, with 379 branches across the country. It employs around 6,000 workers.