Triwik Kurniasari ,  THE JAKARTA POST ,  JAKARTA   |  Sun, 01/31/2010 2:33 PM  |  Screen

The poster for the movie Legion, which depicts the heavenly body of actor Paul Bettany with a pair of wings protruding from his back, sends a clear message to moviegoers: it’s an angel movie, people.

It’s Hollywood doing the angel thing again. While in other movies the angels usually appear to be the ones being turned to for help, Legion offers a different line.

The film is not the typical angel story where an angel, winged or otherwise, falls to Earth and in love with a mortal, as with Nicholas Cage in City of Angels or Denzel Washington in The Preacher’s Wife.

Legion provides a darker and gloomier story than other angel flicks, bringing more action, full of machine-gun blasts.

The fantasy-action-thriller gives us a world where God has lost faith in humankind. So what does God do when He feels that way?

“The last time God lost faith in man, He sent the flood. This time, He sent angels,” says the archangel Michael, played by Englishman Bettany, who rose to fame as Silas in The Da Vinci Code.

Michael is a fallen angel sent by God to Earth.

But he decides to break the rules that bind him to the Almighty, and chooses to take a stand with humans, trying to protect one woman’s unborn child – the one who is said to be the only hope for humanity to survive.

Besides the chaos around the globe, life goes on as normal for Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid), the owner of a roadside diner in a dusty desert, and his only son Jeep (Lucas Black).

Charlie (the luscious Adrianne Palicki), a pregnant waitress, works for Bob.

The problems begin when the TV reception dies and the phones go out, and the diner’s crew and customers realize they have lost all communication with the outside world.

As they wonder what’s happening, an old woman (Jeannette Miller) arrives and orders a steak.

Not long after her meal arrives, the fragile old lady turns into a powerful woman, striking fear into everyone in the diner.

Enter Michael, complete with an arsenal of stolen weapons, telling Charlie that her unborn baby is now humanity’s only hope. And he is willing to do whatever it takes to save the baby.

This modest, backwater diner in the desert suddenly becomes the silent witness to, and ground zero for, the Earth’s final battle.

The world has become an unstoppable nightmare for the last people on the planet as hordes of zombie-like killers arrive and an army of warrior angels closes in, with rival archangel Gabriel looking to finish the job.

Gabriel is played by Kevin Durand, previously from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and several episodes in the series Lost.

Directed by visual effects master Scott Stewart (Iron Man, Night at the Museum, Superman Returns), this film is equal parts action movie, supernatural thriller and horror, with a sprinkling of drama.

Despite its heavy action scenes, it leaves several gaping plot holes by skimming over some subjects.

There is no reason given for why Michael has been ordered to kill Charlie’s unborn baby, even though it is said the baby will save mankind, whatever that means.

Quaid, playing the token loner, helps out a lot with his acting talent, giving a surprisingly good performance.

Verdict: A well-built angel carrying machine guns offers (forgettable) fun for the weekend.

Legion

Screen Gems, 104 minutes

Directed by Scott Stewart

Produced by David Lancaster, Michel Litvak

Written by Peter Schink, Scott Stewart

Starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Kevin Durand, Kate Walsh

January 29, 2010

January 31, 2010

Debnath Guharoy ,  Consultant   |  Wed, 01/27/2010 3:37 PM  |  Business

Two-thirds of the Indonesian economy is driven by people buying and selling goods and services. Conversations over lunch with marketers of these consumer products will confirm steady growth in 2009, poised for more in 2010.

For manufacturers of everyday essentials like toothpaste and tea, headache pills and cooking oil, double-digit growth in the year ahead is well within reach.

Higher fees may have driven down the number of people with active savings accounts, but the big banks are recording healthier profits.

Intensifying competition may have reduced the call-rate per second, but telecommunications companies aren’t seeing lower spend-levels in a market that continues to attract new entrants.

Even bigger ticket products like electronics and motorcycles are poised for a full recovery in 2010. The advertising industry, always a good barometer, is looking ahead with optimism too.

It’s the luxury end of the market that is sluggish, slower to bounce back. New cars, holiday travel and high-end retail for example, are lagging behind the faster moving mass-market products and services.

More influenced by the state of the global economy, consumed more by people affected by the ups and downs of the IDX, these high-end products are more dependent on external factors. As long as inflation is reined in at around 5 percent, Indonesia’s internal combustion engine seems geared to chug confidently ahead.

Insights from Roy Morgan Research reconfirm this outlook, from the people’s perspective. The all-time highs in Consumer Confidence may have taken a battering from the political scandals of recent months, but closure of the commission hearings will heal those wounds in time.

Optimism will take over once again, if history is an indicator of future trends. But the strongest signs of hope are jobs and incomes. Unemployment continues to head in the right direction, with more workers switching from part-time to full-time jobs.

This is increasingly true also for the 25 percent of women who are active members of the workforce. Variances in definition, timing and frequency put Roy Morgan Research data at odds with those reported by government institutions.

For example, the officially reported jobless rate in Indonesia is 7.87 percent, as at August 2009. The comparable number from Roy Morgan Research is lower at 7.2 percent, taking underemployment into account. But regardless of source, definitions or methodology, the trends are similar.

In sharp contrast, these trends are heading in the opposite direction in neighbouring Australia, deemed the best performing economy in the developed world.

More jobs for more Indonesians will obviously lead to more consumption. Better wages will spur that growth on, even faster.

Equally important for tomorrow is the fact that average incomes are growing steadily. In just the last five years of the decade gone by, the average income of the Indonesian breadwinner has gone up from barely Rp 800,000 per month to almost Rp 1.1 million today.

While rising prices have eaten into much of that increased spending power, more cash has brought more everyday essentials into millions of homes. There is no denying that the everyday struggle continues for the average Indonesian. But what should not be ignored either is the good news: for five quarters, the average Main Income Earner has been able to pay for his household’s expenses all by himself. (The few female breadwinners will hopefully forgive the writer’s laziness).

This is a much happier family portrait, when compared to the seven quarters starting in January of 2006. Then, a second income was an existential necessity.

Today, despite the growing percentage of women finishing high school, the percentage of women at home as housewives is inching upwards. Simply put, they wouldn’t be at home if they couldn’t afford to be.

These opinions are based on findings from Roy Morgan Single Source, the country’s largest syndicated survey with over 25,000 Indonesian respondents each year.

Conducted in cities, towns and villages across the country the data is projected to reflect almost 90 percent of the population over the age of 14. The survey is used by more marketers and advertising agencies than any other survey in the country.

While major improvements are visible and more are in the offing, they aren’t coming fast enough for Indonesia’s underprivileged millions. What cannot be ignored is that the same brand of shampoo costs the same on the shelf in Surabaya or Perth.

Lower operating costs makes a country like Indonesia attractive to international manufacturers with global markets. But the question that begs asking is how much really is the low-end labour cost in that bottle of shampoo?

At barely US$120 per month, the average Main Income Earner still earns a pittance. While his more fortunate brother working in an Indonesian factory may bring home twice as much, it’s still considerably less than his counterpart in say, Poland.

As indicators go, Per Capita Income is a blunt instrument, assuming as it does that national wealth is equally distributed.

Unskilled workers and labourers have seen not nearly enough of their fair share. Yet, for the majority of goods and services, they are overwhelmingly the primary consumer.

Imagine the impact, if more of them had more to spend, more to save, more to invest. Good for business, don’t you agree?

The writer can be contacted at Debnath.Guharoy@roymorgan.com

Nani Afrida ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 01/27/2010 3:38 PM  |  Business

The stock exchange authority will summon the management of the publicly listed department store PT Matahari Putra Prima (MPPA) to seek detailed information over the acquisition of its subsidiary PT Matahari Department Store (MDS) by a joint venture with the Meadow Asia Company.

“We will summon the company’s management this week,” the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) director for corporate listing Eddy Sugito said in Jakarta on Wednesday.

MPPA has agreed to sell its entire 90.76 percent stake in its department store subsidiary to the Meadow Asia Company for Rp 7.17 trillion (about US$770 million). Meadow Asia is a joint venture established by MPPA with it having a 20 percent stake and CVC Capital Partners having an 80 percent stake.

CVC Capital Partners is a global private equity and investment advisory firm, headquartered in Luxembourg with a network of 19 offices across Europe, Asia and the US. The funds under its management total $45 billion.

At present, MPPA has a 90.76 percent stake in the department store subsidiary while Pacific Asia Holding and the public own 7.24 percent and 2 percent respectively. Meadow will also buy Asia Holding’s 7.24 percent stake to increase its ownership to 98 percent.

According to Eddy, so far the IDX has received some information about the acquisition from the MPPA public expose last week, but “We need more detailed information, including about the establishment of the Meadow Asia Company,” he said.

However, Eddy said that such an acquisition would be permissible as long as it reflected the realistic value of the company and could bring advantages to stakeholders.

On Tuesday MPPA President Director Benjamin J. Mailool said that the company had decided to sell its stake in MDS to another company to strengthen its capital structure to further expand its retail business in the future.

“We will also ask approval from an extraordinary shareholders general meeting soon,” Benjamin said.

Financial analysts said that this type of transaction was quite common and often done by companies, even if MPPA as the owner of the department store established a joint venture with another company to buy its own stake.

“The acquisition will strengthen MPPA’s capital structure and improve its book value,” Financial Corpindo analyst Erwin Sinaga said.

However, BNI Securities analyst M. Al Fatih questioned the deal. “The core question is why the price of shares *agreed* is more expensive rather than the price in the stock market. It is the Capital Market Supervisory Agency *Bapepam*’s duty to check,” Al Fatih said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Meadow agreed to buy the shares for Rp 2,705 each, about 100 percent higher than the company’s market price. The share price jumped 12 percent to Rp 1,250, the steepest gain since Feb. 26, 2008 on Tuesday following the announcement of the acquisition deal.

In 2010, MPPA allocated Rp 1.2 trillion of capital expenditure (capex) to be financed by its internal budget. The company plans to develop 150 new retail outlets in the next 10 years requiring an investment of Rp 40 billion each.

Aditya Suharmoko ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 01/28/2010 9:28 AM  |  National

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is to officially launch Thursday the operation of the first unit of coal-fired power plant Banten 2 Labuan, which has 300 megawatts capacity.

The unit has been interconnected with the Java-Bali electricity system since July 2009, is part of the government’s fast-track 10,000 MW program to provide electricity nationwide, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Mustafa Abubakar said in a statement.

“The second unit is now in the trial process and is targeted in March 2010 to start operating comercially,” he said.

The operation of one unit of coal-fired power plant in Labuan will save the government Rp 2.43 trillion (US$257.58 million) in cost per year, according to the State-Owned Enterprises Minister.

The Associated Press ,  Los Angeles, U.S.   |  Wed, 01/27/2010 7:03 AM  |  Arts & Entertainment

James Cameron is king of the world again.

20th Century Fox said Tuesday that the director’s sci-fi spectacle, “Avatar,” has passed his shipwreck saga “Titanic” to become the highest-grossing film worldwide.

As of Monday, “Avatar” had brought in $1.859 billion at the box office, passing the $1.843 billion worldwide record set by 1997′s “Titanic.”

“Titanic” remains the highest-grossing film domestically at $600.8 million.

“Avatar” has been No. 1 at the box office for six straight weeks with a domestic total of $554.9 million. It shot down “The Dark Knight” on Saturday to become the second highest-grossing film domestically.

“Avatar” has also mined $1.3 billion in international ticket sales, smashing the $1.24 billion mark previously set by “Titanic.”

20th Century Fox is owned by News Corp.

Reva Sasistiya | Jakarta Globe

Govt Considers a Targeted Electricity Subsidy for Poor

The Indonesian government is considering changing the way it subsidizes electricity, eliminating the direct subsidy to state electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara and replacing it with subsidies targeted at lower-income consumers.

The move would allow PLN to raise its prices for most of its customers, after long complaining about being forced to sell electricity at below production costs.

Jacobus Purwono, director general of electricity and energy utilization at the Energy Ministry, said on Tuesday that the new subsidy may take the form of a simple reduction in the monthly power bills of those low-income consumers with low installed capacity.

There are an estimated 18 million such customers.

“The cut may be about Rp 50,000 [$5.35] per customer, so if their bill is Rp 70,000 they would only have to pay Rp 20,000,” Purwono said.

“After that PLN would ask to be reimbursed by the Finance Ministry. But the reimbursement would have to be audited first by the BPK [Supreme Audit Agency].”

On Monday, PLN president director Dahlan Iskan proposed that the current subsidy scheme be replaced by direct assistance for low-income customers, allowing PLN to raise prices to fair market levels for everyone else. Dahlan was speaking to the House of Representatives’ Commission VII, which oversees energy issues.

“We propose that the subsidy is no longer awarded to PLN but to the people directly,” Dahlan said.

PLN has previously proposed that it be allowed to raise electricity rates by 30 percent for the average household and industrial consumers. Rates are set by the government.

The firm proposed four price-hike scenarios for 2010. These consist of a 20 percent increase for household consumers with an installed supply of less than 900 watts in their homes and a 37.5 percent increase for households with an installed supply of up to 6,600 watts.

The charges for both categories of consumer are controlled by the government and are set at a range of Rp 172 to Rp 621 per kilowatt hour.

PLN says a charge of Rp 1,380 per kwh is needed to cover costs.

For consumers with an installed supply of more than 6,600 watts, PLN wants the government to reduce the amount of power that it subsidizes.

Currently, the subsidies are given for consumption of up to 839 kwh per month. Under PLN’s proposal, this would be reduced to 524.5 kwh per month.

For businesses and industry, whose power is unsubsidized, the state utility is proposing a 30 percent rise in charges.

This year, the government set the total electricity subsidy at Rp 35.3 trillion. Together with Rp 2.5 trillion left over from last year, this brings the total subsidy payable in 2010 to Rp 37.8 trillion. PLN has insisted that it needs about Rp 50 trillion to cover operating costs.

The company says that an average increase in charges of 20 percent to 30 percent is necessary if it is to make up the difference.

PLN has been mired in red ink for years, mostly as a result of the fact that it has to supply electricity at below cost.

In 2008, it lost a record Rp 13.1 trillion, although it blamed much of the loss on the rupiah’s plunge against the dollar in the second half of the year.

PLN moved into the black for the first time last year, booking a net profit of around Rp 7 trillion from Rp 140 trillion in revenue, said Setio Anggoro Dewo, PLN’s finance director.

PLN expects to book Rp 12 trillion of net profit this year, helped by lower production costs and an increase in the government’s subsidy.

The House of Representatives in September approved an increase in PLN’s sales-margin subsidy to 5 percent so the utility can expand its power network and solve shortages in Java and Bali.

PLN has allocated Rp 144 trillion from the government subsidy and the power sales for operational expenditure.

Published: 25 Jan 2010 17:07:11 PST

* CEO resignation to be effective from April

* Bank sees loan growth over 20 pct in 2010

* Analysts still positive on Indonesia banking, Danamon

* Shares close down 6.2 pct, versus 0.5 pct lower index (Updates with detail throughout)

JAKARTA, Jan 25 – Indonesia’s PT Bank Danamon’s president director Sebastian Paredes has resigned with no successor announced, driving shares in Indonesia’s sixth-largest lender down over six percent on Monday.

Analysts said they were taken aback by the resignation, though said they were still bullish on prospects for lenders in an economy being upgraded by credit rating agencies and posting Southeast Asia‘s strongest growth.

“The Indonesian banks stand out in the regional context with their high ROEs, strong growth as well as healthy capitalisation,” said Joanne Wong, Asian banking analyst and portfolio manager at Templeton, whose emerging market asset management arm holds Danamon stock.

Danamon, 68 percent owned by Singapore state investor Temasek, gave no reason for the resignation. Temasek declined to comment.

The firm’s vice-chief commissioner J.B. Kristiadi said at a press briefing it had received Paredes’s resignation letter last week and accepted on the condition it was effective after an April shareholders meeting.

Danamon’s finance director Vera Eve Liem told the briefing the bank‘s loan growth will be at least 20 percent in 2010 and the bank would be focusing on small and medium enterprises.

“Our ‘mass market’ financing is currently at 53 percent of our loan portfolio. We aim to increase it to 55 percent in the next 3 years,” Liem said. “We are still studying a plan to set up pawn shops, which will be operated under our sharia unit … It will provide alternative and cheaper financing for SMEs.”

The bank was hit by higher debt writedowns last year and analysts speculated that Paredes could be taking the blame for this, though some said he could simply be moving on to a new job.

Danamon reported an 18 percent drop in its third quarter profit, hit by higher loan provisioning.

JPMorgan, which hosted Danamon’s management last week in Singapore, said in a note on Friday that management felt investors were focusing on upside risks to growth prospects for 2010, rather than 2009 performance.

It said Danamon expects to make further provisions for derivative-linked losses in the fourth quarter, though it rates the bank as “overweight”.

“We see ample scope for upside surprise, and reiterate our view of Bank Danamon as our top pick among Indonesian banks,” said analyst Aditya Srinath in the note.

The bank is expected to post full-year 2009 profit up 18 percent and 2010 profit up 51 percent, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Indonesia’s economy is seen growing 5.5 percent in 2010, versus an expected 4.3 percent for 2009 and 6.1 percent in 2008.

Investors poured into its rupiah currency, bonds and stock market last year, and the economy was given a further vote of confidence on Monday by Fitch Ratings, who upgraded it to one notch below investment grade.

Danamon shares fell as much as 7.1 percent before closing down 6.2 percent, versus a 0.5 drop for the broader Jakarta index. The stock climbed 94 percent last year, outperforming the index.

JAKARTA — US-based global equities group CVC Capital Partners has agreed to take over Indonesia’s biggest department store chain for 765 million dollars, local media reports said Tuesday.

Market analysts welcomed the deal as a sign of badly needed interest from foreign investors in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, which has been plagued by rampant corruption, crumbling infrastructure and legal uncertainty.

Under the deal, CVC Capital Partners will acquire 90.76 percent of Matahari Department Store for 7.2 trillion rupiah (765 million dollars) from parent company PT Matahari Putra Prima.

A joint venture called Meadow Asia Company Ltd. will be 80-percent owned by CVC Capital Partners and 20 percent by Matahari Putra Prima, which in turn is majority owned by the Lippo Group of controversial tycoon James Riady.

The deal announced Monday must be approved by Matahari shareholders within 40 days.

“This strategic alliance will support Matahari?s future growth and continued expansion,” Matahari Putra Prima said in a statement on its web site.

“It also demonstrates strong foreign investor confidence in Indonesia and contributes significantly to the growth of the domestic economy.”

Matahari Putra Prima operates dozens of department stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, pharmacies, entertainment centres and bookstores in more than 50 cities across Indonesia.

It said the sale would help MDS dominate the Indonesian retail market and open more than 150 new stores over the next 10 to 15 years.

The agreement valued MDS at 2,705 rupiah per share. The stock closed up 24 percent Monday at 1,680 rupiah in moderate volume.

“The deal indicates that foreign investors have confidence in Indonesia… There may be corruption problems but the country is working towards making improvements,” Sucorinvest Central Gani equity analyst Gifar Indra Sakti said.

“It will contribute to the growth of the domestic economy.”

Analysts said the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area, which took full effect on January 1 and slashes barriers to investment as well as trade, would also boost foreign investment in the local economy.

Meanwhile Fitch Ratings on Monday upgraded Indonesia’s sovereign credit rating to BB+ from BB, or one notch below investment grade, reflecting the country’s resilience to the global financial crisis.

Source: AFP