Lippo Banking Group

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Lippo Banking Group is Indonesia's 9th largest lender. It is controlled by ethnic Chinese Mochtar Riady together with the Lippo Group. Indonesia sold the stake in Bank Lippo as part of asset disposals aimed at cutting the government's budget deficit and recouping the 450 trillion rupiah it spent to bail out banks after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Swissasia Global bought 52.1 percent of Bank Lippo in February 2004 from the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency for $142 million. The agency took control of Bank Lippo from its previous owners, the Riady family, after the government injected funds into the lender in 1999 to boost capital. The family still holds a minority stake, partly through PT Lippo E-Net, which owns 5.6% of the lender. Despite their minority holding, the Riady's retain controlling rights.

On 26 August 2005, the shareholders of the bank and Bank Indonesia have approved the sales of the 52.05% controlling stake held by Swissasia Global to Santubong Investment B.V which was wholly owned by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the investment arm of the Malaysian federal government. The sales took effect on 30 September the same year.^[1]^[2]

The bank's United States subsidiary was implicated in the scandal of improper contributions to the Clinton-Gore Campaign. According to a 1998 Senate Governmental Affairs Committee report, by 1992, while employed by Lippo Bank in California, John "Huang began to raise illegal foreign money for the DNC through Lippo-owned shell companies ... " This money, which wound up in Democratic coffers, was ultimately traced to the "greater China region."

"Huang's colleagues at Lippo Bank . . . never understood his corporate duties and described him as a `mystery man,' " the report said.