Waiting For BRI Ultra Micro Expansion Through Pegadaian And PNM

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government, through the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), is preparing to take further strategic steps in the form of integrating three state-owned business units.

The plan is for PT Pegadaian and PT Permodalan Nasional Madani (PNM) to merge their business activities with PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk (BRI) to strengthen the ultra-micro sector. In order to smooth this step, BRI as the parent entity has prepared a strategy in the form of corporate action by implementing a rights issue.

If this strategy goes well, BRI will have a stake in Pegadaian and PMN by 99 percent for series B. Meanwhile, the government will still hold the rest through series A. Even though BRI controls the business, the state has more dominant authority thanks to the series A dwiwarna share. The reason is that these shares have the ability to approve the GMS, as well as filing and binding candidates for commissioners and directors of the company.

This agenda has been brought by the government through the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani to the DPR on Monday, February 8 to be discussed in a consultation meeting. In his explanation, the Minister of Finance ensured that this corporate action would not interfere with the business activities of each entity.

"These are three businesses that complement each other and will not cannibalize each other," he said.

The inclusion of Pegadaian and PNM is expected to enrich BRI in terms of assets of at least IDR 100 trillion. This is concluded from Pegadaian's last report in the third quarter of 2020 which states that this state-owned company has assets of IDR 70 trillion.

Meanwhile, PNM assets are known to be IDR 26 trillion for the same period. Meanwhile, BRI's assets until the close of December 2020 amounted to more than IDR 1,500 trillion.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chairman of Commission XI DPR Fathan Subchi in the consultation meeting explained that the alignment of the three BUMN businesses is not expected to take a long time. The narrative he made was based on the merger process of three government sharia banks which took place quickly, although the mechanism was more difficult than the current BRI corporate action.

"(It can be completed) in June or July," he said.

Through this tactic, BRI will certainly be able to expand the financial expansion capacity of the unbankable society from the previous 15 million to 29 million people.