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AKARTA: State-owned Bank Mandiri will team up with French insurance giant AXA SA to take over local general insurance company PT Asuransi Dharma Bangsa (ADB), the bank announced Tuesday.

Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest bank in term of assets, said in a statement that the bank decided to choose the French insurance company for the acquisition of the Indonesian general insurance bank after a due diligence process which began in early January this year.

Under the joint acquisition plan, Bank Mandiri would acquire 120,000 of 126,718 new shares to be issued by ADB, while AXA will take over 73,292 shares currently held by existing shareholders of Bank Mandiri’s Pension Funds and PT Estika Yasakelola, as well as the remaining 6,718 new shares.

With the transaction, Bank Mandiri will own 60 percent of ADB’s shares and AXA will control the remaining 40 percent.

ADB, with total assets of Rp 61.9 billion (US$7.1 million) as of the end of 2010, will be the second insurance company to be jointly owned by Bank Mandiri and AXA. At present, the two financial institutions jointly own life insurance firm AXA-Mandiri Financial Services (AMFS). — JP