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Local financing company PT Buana Finance Tbk secured on
Thursday a loan worth US$28 million from a syndicate of local and
overseas banks led by Chinatrust Commercial Bank of Taiwan.
With a three year-maturity, the loan will be used by Buana Finance to
provide credit to the country's export-oriented companies.
"The US$28 million loan was approved during a shareholders meeting in
June, and the funds would be distributed as loans for our
export-oriented custromers," Buana president director Eko Santoso said
(pictured right talking to Chinatrust Indonesia president director
Peter Liu).
The syndicated loan is an achievement for Chinatrust as Buana initially
requested a $25 million facility.
"The oversubscription shows that there is growing interest from
international financial institutions to invest in Indonesia, especially
in Buana Finance," Eko said.
During the 1997 monetary crisis, Buana was able to restructure all its
non-performing loans that turned sour unlike many other companies here.
Chinatrust is acting as the arranger and undwriter for the loan. The
syndication consists of Chinatrust Commercial Bnk Ltd., Bank of China
Ltd., Bank SinoPac, PT Bank Negara Indonesia, Tbk. (Tokyo Branch),
Chailease Finance Company, Ltd., State Bank of India, Bowa Bank Ltd.,
and IFS Capital Limited.
"We (Chinatrust) are the market leader in Taiwan's financial sector and
we are now trying to expand to other countries including Indonesia. Our
strategy is to have the best local team to give services to local
customers," Liu said.
"Many of our customers in Taiwan also come from Indonesia. There are
around 90,000 Indonesian workers in Taiwan. We also give financing to
them," Liu said.
Chinatrust is the largest bank in Taiwan in terms of profit. In 2005,
the bank booked total revenues of NT$76.7 billion, with pre-tax profit
reaching NT$16.6 billion.
Since 2005, the bank has been expanding into the international market
in countries like India, Indonesia, Japan and China.
"We hope to grow as a prudent corporate financing company together with
Buana. We are certain that Buana has what it takes to be the
most-preferred finance company in the country," Hendrianto said.
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