Indonesia's Bank Lippo shareholders approved today the planned takeover of a 52.05 percent stake in the bank by Malaysia's state investment arm Khazanah Nasional, the bank president said.

Khazanah is also planning to tender an offer in November for the public's 39.89 percent stake in Bank Lippo, Bank Lippo president Joseph Luhukay said after a shareholders' extraordinary general meeting.

The Indonesian government and Lippo E-Net each own a 2.49 percent and 5.57 percent stake in Bank Lippo, which is listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange and is Indonesia's ninth largest bank in terms of assets as of December 2004.

Bank Lippo earlier said it expected to close the deal with Khazanah in October.

Last month, Khazanah agreed to buy a 52.05 percent stake in Bank Lippo from the Swissasia Global consortium for 3.18-3.30 trillion rupiah (US$324-336 million). The actual purchase consideration is to be finalised upon completion of the bank's June 30, 2005 audited accounts.

The long haul

Swissasia paid 1.2 trillion rupiah for the stake from the now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) in 2003.

"Khazanah is here for the long run, they are committed," Luhukay said.

He said with Khazanah's backing, Bank Lippo hopes to become a national bank by 2010, as outlined under the central bank's 10-year blueprint for the banking industry.

Known as the Indonesian Banking Architecture (API), the blueprint classifies banks capitalised at from 10 to 50 trillion rupiah as national banks.