KINIBIZ Indonesia, where Tiger’s cousin, the Sumatran, lives almost equally threatened, is no place for a pansy to be doing business despite a large market which is growing rapidly. Opportunities come with danger and it is necessary to react to dangerous situations with the alacrity of a cat.

So it is easy to understand why CIMB Group, the second largest banking group in the country after the Tiger bank, Maybank, and which earns about a third of income from Indonesia, moved to strengthen its capital position in the wake of the depreciation of the Indonesian rupiah.

What probably happened was that capital requirements came under pressure in ringgit terms because of Indonesian operations and there was a need to remedy this in a bit of a hurry. And that was what CIMB did - it raised RM3.55 billion in matter of days.

It issued 500 million shares equivalent to 6.08 percent of its enlarged share capital at a price of RM7.10 per share, equivalent to a narrow 2 percent discount to the volume weighted average price traded on Friday, Jan 10 of RM7.26.

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This article was written by P Gunasegaram.