Indonesian business tycoon Tahir is keen to gain control of PT Bank Permata, a larger rival to his PT Bank Mayapada International, as he seeks to put his lender in the ranks of the nation’s biggest banks.
Tahir’s Mayapada Group wants to buy the 90 percent of Permata that is owned by Standard Chartered PLC and PT Astra International, then merge it with Bank Mayapada to create Indonesia’s largest non-government bank by assets after PT Bank Central Asia, he said.
The group has been buying Permata shares in the market since November last year, Tahir said. Standard Chartered and Astra each own a 45 percent stake in Permata.
A merger would help Tahir — whose businesses range from healthcare to media and real estate — to expand Bank Mayapada’s footprint and compete more effectively with state-run lenders and Bank Central Asia.
Tahir is betting financial services would be among the businesses best placed to benefit from the expansion in Southeast Asia’s largest economy and said he is confident in tackling a surge in bad loans at Permata that has weighed on the stock’s performance.
“Permata, in my guess, is facing a tough time on the non-performing loans,” Tahir said in an interview at his office in South Jakarta. “I don’t see the reason why Standard Chartered needs to keep Permata. My strategy is, if the shareholders of Bank Mayapada can have a chance to buy out Bank Permata, then it must be merged with Bank Mayapada.”
A spokesman for Standard Chartered declined to comment on Tahir’s interest in Permata and said the UK bank is committed to Indonesia, a market that it considers to be strategically important.
Astra head of investor relations Tira Ardianti said it would continue to support Permata.
Permata is Indonesia’s fifth-largest private-sector bank, with assets of 171 trillion rupiah (US$12.8 billion). Its gross non-performing loans ratio was 4.9 percent in the quarter that ended on Sept. 30 last year, according to its Web site. That is higher than the 3.2 percent average among the nation’s top banks, Financial Services Authority data showed.
Mayapada’s ratio stood at 2.4 percent at the end of September last year, according to Indonesia Stock Exchange data.
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