www.thejakartaglobe.com - Bank Indonesia will seek talks on reciprocity with Singapore as a condition for the central bank’s approval of DBS Group’s bid to acquire Bank Danamon Indonesia, its deputy governor said.
The central bank wants equal treatment for Indonesian banks to operate in Singapore, deputy governor Halim Alamsyah said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Singapore-based DBS offered to buy Jakarta-based Danamon for about $7.2 billion on April 2 in the biggest takeover by a lender in Southeast Asia. Acquiring Indonesia’s sixth-largest bank by assets will help DBS branch out from Singapore and Hong Kong to tap an economy that grew last year at the fastest pace since before the Asian financial crisis. (source)
“Singapore is probably the most protectionist banking sector in Asia,” said Jim Antos, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia, citing restrictions on the number of automated teller machines and branches foreign banks are allowed to operate in the city-state. “The Indonesian government is right in making their little pitch and I would do the same if I were them.”
A total of 26 foreign banks, including Bank Negara Indonesia, have so-called full banking licenses, allowing them to offer a wider range of services.
Among the overseas lenders, eight have so-called qualifying full bank privileges, which lets them extend their operations to include 25 locations, share automated-teller machine networks and offer services linked to retirement savings, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Web site.
Trade and infrastructure finance as well as corporate and retail banking are among the promising areas in Indonesia, Piyush Gupta, chief executive of the Singapore-based bank, said last week.
It would be difficult for Indonesia to block the transaction because it’s legally valid and within regulatory guidelines, Reuters reported, citing Gupta.
The collapse of the Danamon purchase would also be an impediment for future deals, Reuters cited him as saying. Edna Koh, a DBS spokeswoman, confirmed the comments to Bloomberg News.
Danamon shares were flat on Wednesday at Rp 6,300 in Jakarta trading, while DBS lost 0.5 percent to 13.19 Singapore dollars in Singapore.
“All foreign banks are free to expand their activities in Singapore subject to the guidelines specific to the license under which they operate,” the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in an e-mail on Monday.
The central bank declined to say if it has been approached by Bank Indonesia asking for more room for Indonesian lenders to expand in the city-state, adding that “our dealings with other regulators are confidential.”
Four Indonesian lenders have a presence in the city-state, the Singapore central bank said. It didn’t immediately respond to a request for further comments on Wednesday on Bank Indonesia’s statement.
For DBS, the acquisition gives it access to Danamon’s 3,000-branch network that serves 6 million customers. The Indonesian economy grew 6.46 percent last year, a pace unseen since before the Asian crisis in 1997, and is forecast to grow 6.5 percent this year.
DBS is buying a 67 percent stake in Danamon from Temasek, Singapore’s state-owned investment company and its biggest stakeholder, for Rp 45.2 trillion ($4.9 billion) in new shares. The lender offered to buy the remaining stock from other shareholders for Rp 21.2 trillion in cash. The cash offer on April 2, at Rp 7,000 a share, is at a 52 percent premium from Danamon’s Rp 4,600 close on March 30.
“The case for the Indonesians isn’t that strong because Temasek is a Singapore entity and they own Bank Danamon to begin with,” Antos at Mizuho said. “There’s a change in the owners’ brass name plates, but is it a true sale in the classic sense? No.”
Under Indonesian law, DBS, which is Southeast Asia’s largest bank, must sell shares of Danamon back to the public if it owns more than 80 percent of the lender after the takeover, according to the Indonesian bourse.
“We are still discussing in Bank Indonesia about a plan to limit single majority shareholder in banks,” Alamsyah said on Wednesday.
DBS, which has two years from the close of the offer to pare down its stake, has said it could spread the share sale over that time.
The rule is aimed at maintaining liquidity in the market by allowing stock investors to still own shares of publicly traded companies after an acquisition, Nurhaida, head of the capital market supervisory agency, said in a mobile-phone text message on Tuesday.
Under Indonesian law, DBS is allowed to buy as much as 99 percent of a local bank, which means it would have to sell back as much as 19 percent of Danamon to the public.
Source : http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/bank-indonesia-uses-dbss-danamon-bid-to-negotiate/510741 - April 11, 2012
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