Indonesia c.bank says China banks have not bid for BII
JAKARTA, March 4 (Reuters) - Indonesia's central bank said on Tuesday that neither Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) nor China Construction Bank (CCB) have shown an interest in buying shares in Bank Internasional Indonesia (BNII.JK).
Three Indonesian newspapers on Tuesday reported that the central bank had confirmed ICBC (601398.SS) and CCB (601939.SS) had applied to buy a stake in Indonesia's sixth-largest bank from Singapore investor Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL].
Temasek said last week that it may sell its stake in BII in order to comply with the central bank's single presence policy which is due to be implemented in 2010 and which is intended to force consolidation among the country's 130 or so banks.
"We have not received letters from ICBC and CCB. What we have is only Temasek saying that they are planning to sell and they never said to whom," Halim Alamsyah, director for research and banking administration at Bank Indonesia, told Reuters.
The newspapers had quoted Alamsyah as the source confirming that the central bank had received proposals from the two Chinese banks.
Temasek's unit Fullerton owns a 75 percent stake in Sorak Financial, which in turn owns a 55.78 percent stake in BII. This effectively values Temasek's stake at nearly $750 million based on the current share price.
Analysts had long expected that Temasek, which faces problems over its telecoms holdings in Indonesia, would look at a merger of its Indonesian banking interests. Temasek also controls Indonesia's fifth-largest lender, PT Bank Danamon Tbk (BDMN.JK).
ICBC, China's largest bank, has total assets of $1.06 trillion, while CCB has $861.6 billion in assets -- far exceeding Indonesia's total banking sector assets of $218 billion. ($1=7.103 Yuan) ($1=9105 Rupiah) (Reporting by Adriana Nina Kusuma and Harry Suhartono, editing by Sara Webb)
