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Lawyers

Ayik Candrawulan Gunadi

Ayik Candrawulan Gunadi

Position

Partner

Career

Ayik, who joined ABNR in 2001 and was made partner in 2013, has extensive prior experience working in the private sector, including with an insurance company in Indonesia, an international legal and tax consultants in Rotterdam, a Dutch bank in Amsterdam, and as senior legal manager with a major Indonesian power company .

At ABNR, he focuses his extensive practice on project finance, general corporate/mergers & acquisitions (M&A), foreign direct investment (FDI), banking & finance and real estate.

In project finance, he represents both public and private sector clients across a wide range of infrastructure sectors, with a particular focus on railways, power and ports. His retainer clients include Indonesian state rail operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) since 2013, and its affiliate, PT Railink, which operates airport trains between Jakarta city center and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, and between Kualanamu Airport and the city of Medan in North Sumatra.

He has assisted KAI with a long list of financings, including their USD 4.5 billion direct loan financing for the development of the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (Asian Legal Business’s 2018 “Indonesia Deal of the Year” and “Project Finance Deal of the Year”), and the USD 1.38 billion syndicated financing for the rolling out of the Greater Jakarta Light Rail (LRT) project in 2018.

He is presently advising KAI on a number of significant infrastructure projects, including a long-term project to reopen disused rail lines in Java, the development of a rail-based coal transportation network in Sumatra, and a proposed resignalling project.

In the power sector, he is counsel to PT Tanjung Jati Power Company (and its 80% shareholder, Malaysia-based YTL Corporation Bhd), which is developing the USD 2.7-billion Tanjung Jati A Power-Plant Project, and is also advising PT Indonesia Infrastructure Finance (IIF), an Indonesian state-sponsored lender to infrastructure projects, on its loan financing for the development of a 10-MW greenfield mini hydro power plant.

In telecommunications infrastructure, he advised PT Indonesia Infrastructure Finance (IIF) as one of the lenders to the Project Palapa Middle Package for the construction of a 1,676 km fiber-optic network linking regions and cities in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and North Maluku.

He also regularly advises Pelindo II, an Indonesian state-owned port operator, on port-infrastructure matters.

In general corporate/M&A and FDI, he is currently working on the acquisition of an Indonesian mining company by a China-based specialist mining and metallurgy company, as well as a number of other cross-border M&A deals, including advising a Taiwan-based manufacturer of fine chemicals on its acquisition of a Indonesian chemicals company.

In 2018, he advised Malaysian state energy company Petronas, a retainer client, on corporate matters related to its Indonesian subsidiary, PT Petronas Niaga Indonesia.

In Banking & Finance, one of Ayik’s retainer clients is Indonesian publicly listed lender PT Bank Artha Graha International Tbk, which he advises on a wide range of matters across a variety of practice areas.

In 2018, he successfully concluded the long-running acquisition by South Korea’s APRO Financial Inc. of Indonesia’s Bank Dinar and is now working on Dinar’s merger with Bank Oke Indonesia, which was acquired previously by APRO. This acquisition and merger process is being conducted using a pioneering 3-tier structure developed by the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK), with the assistance of ABNR, which allows an acquiring foreign bank to bypass the 40% foreign ownership cap in the Indonesian banking sector. The structure is now held out as a model by the OJK to promote further foreign investment in the country’s banking sector under their Indonesia Banking Architecture blueprint for strengthening the financial system.

In real estate, Ayik regularly handles the land acquisition aspects of the major infrastructure projects he works on, such as the Tanjung Jati A Power-Plant Project referred to above, where he recently completed work on the USD 43-million acquisition of land for the plant. He is now assisting with the negotiations for acquisition of rights of way for overhead transmission lines from local landowners.

In 2018, he advised publicly listed PT Bukit Uluwatu Villa Tbk (an Indonesian hotel and resort developer) on a proposed rights issue and private placement.

He is presently assisting an Indonesian SOE with their proposed joint venture with a state-owned construction company for a proposed transport-orientated development (TOD) in Yogyakarta that will consist of a mall and apartment complex.

Ayik, who holds an LL.M. in business and trade law from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is recommended for banking & finance by Legal 500 Asia Pacific, and is listed as a “highly regarded” practitioner for project development, project finance, M&A and energy by IFLR 1000.

Languages

Indonesian and English.

Memberships

Indonesian Bar Association; PERADI (Indonesian Advocates Association); AKHI (Association of Indonesian Legal Consultants).

Education

LLB, Parahyangan Catholic University (1997); LLM in Business and Trade Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands (2000).

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