(Nov 15): Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. has decided against making an offer for Standard Chartered’s Indonesian bank, despite expressing interest in an earlier stage of the sale process, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Singaporean bank concluded that PT Bank Permata wasn’t a match after conducting due diligence, the people said, requesting anonymity because the deliberations are private. OCBC was among banks that had shown interest in bidding for the Indonesian lender, Bloomberg reported previously.
See: Bank Permata draws interest from both DBS and OCBC
Standard Chartered and PT Astra International each own 45% stakes in the Indonesian bank, which has a market value of US$2.4 billion ($3.3 billion).
Shares of Permata fell as much as 5.7% on Friday morning and were down 2% at 9.26am in Jakarta. OCBC rose 0.7% in Singapore.
Representatives for OCBC, Permata and Standard Chartered declined to comment. Spokespeople for Astra couldn’t immediately be reached.
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Permata’s net income more than doubled to 1.1 trillion rupiah ($106 million) in the first nine months of the year, driven by gains in lending income. However, an earlier round of deteriorating asset quality prompted Standard Chartered and Astra to inject new capital into the bank in 2017.
Earlier this year, Standard Chartered described its investment in Permata as no longer core, indicating it was preparing to dispose of the stake.
OCBC already has operations in Indonesia, and the earnings contribution from that market will continue to grow organically, Chief Executive Officer Samuel Tsien said when the bank posted third-quarter results earlier this month.
