Acquisition Of BTN By Bank Mandiri Highly Risky

Jakarta, April 22 (Antara) - Banking observer Deni Daruri described as highly risky the plan for PT Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) to be taken over by PT Bank Mandiri. It is risky to force the the plan on the two state lenders as they have different core business, Deni said here on Monday. It would be best for the government to plan merger between Bank Mandiri and Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and let BTN to be taken over by Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), he suggested. BNI and BRI are also state banks. Deni, who is also a leading banker, said merger should be made between banks having similar characteristics. He regretted the reasons given for the merger plan by Minister for State Enterprises Dahkan Iskan. Dahlan Iskan had said the takeover of BTN by Bank Mandiri is to make Bank Mandiri more competitive in this region when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) scheme is implemented in 2015. "If the idea is to create a big bank , Bank Mandiri should acquire BNI or BNI takes over Bank Mandiri that Indonesia would have a powerful anchor bank," Deni said. It would not give significant additional strength to Bank Mandiri if it acquires BTN , he said, adding, on the contrary , BTN may no long carry out its function as the financier of low cost houses. Deni suspected there was a hidden agenda in the plan for Bank Mandiri to take over BTN. "The process of acquisition is a policy of the government, but the policy would not work if a decision is made unilaterally," he said He said at least there are six necessary condition variables in putting banks by categories including total productivity, technical efficiency , and economic scale, and sufficient condition variables such as Return on Equity (ROE), Return on Asset (ROA), average cost, marginal costs and Net Interest Margin (NIM). Therefore, if the government is to go ahead with it original plan, the probability of survival rate of BTN would drop to 35 percent, he said. The survival rate is 36 percent if BTN is to be taken over by BRI, and 78 percent if it remains an independent bank, he added. On Sunday, around 1,000 workers of BTN rallied in front of the BTN head office in Central Jakarta protesting the takeover plan by Bank Mandiri. Former chief economics minister Rizal Ramli speaking in support of the workers questioned the motive prompting the takeover plan. "There is no reason to hand over BTN to Bank Mandiri. It is only a scenario set for the interest of a certain group," Rizal Ramli said. The takeover plan is only a stratagem of Minister for State Enterprises Dahlan Iskan and the Board of Directors of Bank Mandiri, he said. He said he suspected the plan was being politically motivated linking the takeover to implementation of general elections in the country. Indonesia held legislative elections on April 9 to be followed with the presidential election on July 9 this year. The workers were angered by the endorsement of the takeover by Minister for State Enterprises Dahlan Iskan. The workers carried banners reading "BTN is not for sale and "Don`t make BTN a political commodity." Rizal Ramli said in the past several years the performance of Bank Mandiri has declined . "If it wants to be bigger in assets, Bank Mandiri should take over a private bank instead of a state lender," he said. Meanwhile, chairman of BTN labor union Satya Wijayantara said all BTN employees were against the takeover plan. Satya said BTN employees would continue action of protest until the takeover plan is cancelled. "We are ready with a much bigger action. We are also ready to launch a strike if Dahlan Iskan refused to cancel the plan," he said.