Seven months after Liem's home was torched, a company was created for the sole purpose of disposing Salim assets in order to repay the outstanding debts. Holdiko Perkasa was formed in December 1998 by IBRA. An information memorandum said Holdiko was established “in relation to the settlement between the Salim Group and the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency with regard to liquidity credits provided to BCA and the affiliated loans which exceeded the Legal Lending Limit given by BCA to Salim Group affiliated companies.” Office space for Holdiko was created in Wisma Indocement, seven floors below Anthony Salim's nineteenth storey office. Cynics viewed it as literally “being under” Anthony. But by then, Salim had lost some of its vaunted clout, and Holdiko worked hard to be credible, keeping more than an arm's length away. Its efforts won kudos as well as criticism. Holdiko worked a lot better than four similar bodies set up by IBRA to sell assets pledged by other debtors.

GETTING STARTED AMID TURBULENCE

Technically, Holdiko was owned by two Salim companies, Gemahripah Pertiwi and Carakasubur Nirmala. But all their shares were pledged to IBRA along with all of Holdiko's in the Salim-pledged assets, and the information memo noted it was “under the effective control of IBRA”, which appointed Holdiko's management and directed its work. IBRA said it would have “hands-off management but hands-on oversight”. Salaries and Holdiko expenses were paid out of sales of Salim assets, not by IBRA. Salim was meant to have nothing to do with Holdiko's operations, but not surprisingly, there were serious doubts that Anthony could be kept at bay. By design, there were two Salim people among Holdiko's directors, but the pivotal person was an American investment banker, Scott Coffey, who had a reputation for solid integrity and no Salim links. Coffey came to Jakarta in 1990 with Citibank and later worked at state-owned Bahana Securities. IBRA chairman Glenn Yusuf hired Coffey, who had a power-of-attorney to act for IBRA. Holdiko's small professional staff — fewer than twenty — included largely young bankers, as they were perceived to be less likely to be steeped in Indonesia's corruption-tainted ways. Holdiko took possession of pledged Salim assets and prepared procedures for selling them.