[Updated Friday, July 12 at 8:37 a.m.]
Bank Maspion, a Surabaya-based mid-size lender, is aiming for 25 percent lending growth this year, using proceeds from its Rp 246 billion ($24.7 million) initial public offering last week to expand lending into small- to medium-sized businesses.
Herman Halim, president director of Bank Maspion, told reporters on Thursday that the bank is aiming to grow its lending by 20 percent to 25 percent this year. That will lift the lender’s total outstanding loans to Rp 3.4 trillion this year.
“We will continue focusing on the trading sector and small- to medium-sized businesses. Lending to the trading sector is quite big for us, about 75 percent of our portfolio,” Herman said. As of the end of June, the bank’s lending stood at Rp 3 trillion, he added.
Amid concern over a slowing economy, Herman said that banking activities at Bank Maspion in the past few weeks “had been pretty stable,” but he hoped policymakers would do more to control inflation and stabilize the rupiah. The rupiah has lost 3.2 percent so far this year against the US dollar on the concern of a widening current account deficit.
The central bank on Thursday announced that it was increasing the key interest rate by 50 basis points to 6.5 percent, higher than expected by economists, to curb inflation after the fuel-price hike.
Bank Maspion will use the proceeds of last week’s IPO to help finance its lending expansion. The company sold 770 million shares, or about 20 percent of its total, at
Rp 320 per share. It raised Rp 246 billion in the process.
By 2015, the bank aspires to have more than Rp 1 trillion in capital, which will allow it to conduct a wider range of banking activities. The company currently has about Rp 600 billion in capital.
To achieve the capital size, Herman said the bank is considering a secondary share offering. “With retained earnings we may raise Rp 100 billion to put into capital. The rest will have to come from rights issuance, which we may do in the first semester of 2015,” he said.
In their trading debut on Thursday, shares in Bank Maspion rose 1.6 percent to Rp 325 from the IPO price of Rp 320, while the main index gained 2.8 percent for the day.
The lender’s strong debut mirrored that of two other banks this week.
Medan-based Bank Mestika Dharma gained 13 percent on its Monday debut while Jakarta-based Bank Mitraniaga surged 69 percent on Tuesday.
Bank Maspion is affiliated to Maspion Group, one of the largest producers of home appliances in Indonesia.
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