(25 May 2005 – Indonesia) Indonesia’s largest bank by assets, Bank Mandiri is seeking to merge with Bank Negara Indonesia – both banks are state owned.Bank Mandiri president Agus Martowardojo said the bank had proposed to the Indonesian government to merge the bank with BNI to set up a bank that would be large enough to offer financing to infrastructure projects.
He said a new merged bank would have assets of more than US$37 billion compared with the US$27.6 billion the bank had at the end of December 2004.
The Indonesian government holds a 69.5 percent stake in Mandiri and 99.12 percent of BNI.
Combined, the two banks’ equity capital would reach more than US$4.2 billion compared with Mandiri’s US$2.4 billion.
BNI, for its part, has not commented on the proposed deal.