PETALING JAYA: Malaysian banking groups with exposure to Indonesian banks will see an earnings impact and possibly need to re-think their growth strategy should the Indonesian central bank impose a retroactive ruling that requires major shareholders to reduce their stakes in that country's banks.

However, it is premature to judge the financial impact on the groups' earnings as there is still much ambiguity surrounding the proposed changes to Indonesia's banking ownership rules.

A foreign research analyst said if Malaysian banking groups were required to reduce their stakes in their Indonesian units, earnings contribution from the Indonesian market would drop in line with the paring down of stakes, and the growth strategy of the banks would be affected.

“As a function of reduced earnings, we can expect these companies to see their share price, return on equity and valuation affected,” he added.

PT Bank Internasional Indonesia’s headquarters in Jakarta

The analyst said one of two possibilities would come from the capital gains made through the paring down of shareholding Malaysian banks would either return the gains to shareholders or re-deploy the capital for other Asean banking investments.

“The chance of the second option is higher and they will likely look at markets like Thailand,” he said.

While Bank Indonesia deputy governor Halim Alamsyah told a local business weekly over the weekend that the proposed ownership cap on Indonesian banks was meant to improve corporate governance, ECM Libra Investment Research said there was no clarity on specific issues, which raised concerns over the impact of such proposals on Malaysian banks with interests in Indonesian banks.

Some of the concerns that ECM Libra highlighted in its report yesterday included whether the ownership cap would be applied retroactively, whether foreign investors who had taken up major stakes post-Asian financial crisis and had shown strong commitment to stay on and improve their Indonesian entity would be given an exemption, and what would be the transition period if the proposal was applied retroactively.

While chances are high that the shareholding regulatory changes will be implemented, analysts expect the transition period for the paring down of stakes to be more than five years.

Details of the regulatory changes are still sketchy at this juncture, but Halim had clarified in the news report that the new shareholding ceiling was not only applicable to foreign but also domestic ownership. He said “dominant ownership was not good for corporate governance” and what the central bank was discussing now was “shareholder threshold issues trying to introduce an effective controlling stake in a bank.”

Local banking groups with sizeable stakes in Indonesian units include Malayan Banking Bhd with a 95% shareholding in PT Bank Internasional Indonesia and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd with a 96% stake in PT Bank CIMB Niaga Tbk. For the half year ended June 30, CIMB Niaga was the largest contributor to CIMB group's pre-tax profit at 29% compared with 36% in the first half of 2010.

RHB Capital Bhd has also stated its intention to buy 80% in Bank Mestika for RM1.16bil while Affin Holdings Bhd told the local stock exchange last month that it had cancelled its plan to buy Indonesia's PT Bank Ina Perdana following the proposed limit on foreign shareholdings in commercial banks in Indonesia.