Three of Indonesia's biggest Suharto-era business tycoons, former bank owners Anthony Salim, Bob Hasan and Sjamsul Nursalim, have agreed to surrender more assets to the government to repay their debts, reports said Thursday.
The Jakarta Post quoted Attorney General Marzuki Darusman as announcing late on Wednesday that all three former bank owners had also agreed to provide personal guarantees to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) that their debts would be repaid.
They had also provided IBRA with lists of assets they would hand over to IBRA, the Post said without detailing the lists of pledged assets.
"They have principally agreed to pledge more assets and provide personal guarantees," Marzuki said following a meeting of the Financial Sector Policy Committee (FSPC).
The FSPC, made up of senior government economic ministers and officials of IBRA and the attorney general's office, approves all major decisions made by the bank restructuring agency.
The three tycoons between them owe billions of dollars to the government in repayment of massive liquidity support they received from the central bank between 1998 and 1999, at the height of the regional financial crisis.
They have also been found to have violated legal lending limits by channeling their money to affiliated business groups.
Marzuki said IBRA would study the assets pledged and decide whether they were sufficient to cover the obligations of the former bank owners.
"For the time being, the ex-bank owners are being cooperative," he said.
Anthony Salim is the owner of the Salim Group, which formerly controlled Bank Central Asia (BCA), the country's largest private bank.
Nursalim owns the Gadjah Tunggal Group, which owned the now defunct Bank Bank Dagang Negara Indonesia (BDNI), and timber-tycoon Hasan, former president Suharto's closest business partner was the co-owner of the now defunct Bank Bank Umum Nasional (BUN).
The FSPC had given former bank owners until Wednesday evening to agree to surrender additional assets and provide personal guarantees or risk legal sanction.
But the Jakarta Post, quoting an unnamed government source, said the letter sent by the three to the FSPC appeared to have no strong legal basis, and that they had been asked to come personally to the office of the coordinating minister for the economy by Friday to sign a legally binding document.
Hasan, Salim and Nursalim are all signatories to the Master of Settlement and Acquisition Agreement (MSAA) drawn up in 1999, under which they and other owners of other failed banks taken over by the government pledged assets to repay their debts to the government.
The Post estimated the Salim Group owes the government some 53 trillion rupiah (5.7 billion dollars), but said the assets it had surrendered so far were valued at only about 20 trillion rupiah.
Economic coordinating minister Rizal Ramli has said an investigation by the attorney general's office showed the conglomerates still owned numerous assets both in Indonesia and abroad.
The Post also quoted a government sources as saying Suharto's brother-in-law Sudwikatmono, although an MSAA signatory, was not included with the three in the Wednesday deadline because his bank had not violated the legal lending limit – JAKARTA (AFP)
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