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Lawyers

Yanny Suryaretina

Yanny Suryaretina

Position

Partner

Career

A member of ABNR since 1994, Yanny is a senior partner focusing on banking & finance, project finance & development, mergers & acquisitions (M&A), foreign direct investment (FDI), and real estate.

Over her many years of legal practice, she has garnered extensive industry-specific knowledge and expertise across a wide range of sectors, including banking & financial services, investment, manufacturing, consumer goods, real estate & construction, tourism & hospitality, power & renewables, intellectual property, start-ups & e-commerce, pharmaceuticals & healthcare, education, automotive, telecommunications, plantations & agriculture general mining, shipping, and aviation.

In her extensive banking & finance practice, she has advised a long list of clients down the years on offshore and onshore financings, including domestic and cross-border syndicated, consortium and bilateral lending transactions. She also offers in-depth expertise in financial-services regulatory.

At the start of the 2000s, she was a member of the ABNR team that advised the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) on its efforts to restore a number of ailing banks to health following the Indonesian Financial Crisis that erupted in 1997.

She is currently working on a proposed equity investment by a leading international financing institution in an Indonesian bank, having earlier assisted an Indonesian state-owned bank with their acquisitions of an asset management company and insurance company.

Previously, she advised South Korea-based Shinhan Bank on its acquisition of Indonesian lenders PT Bank Metro Express and PT Centratama Nasional Bank, and the two banks’ subsequent merger to form Shinhan Bank Indonesia. This USD 115-million transaction was the first banking sector M&A process to be conducted using a pioneering 3-tier structure under which interests that exceed the official 40% foreign ownership cap may be acquired in local banks by foreign investors provided that the acquired banks are immediately merged so as to comply with the OJK’s “single presence policy” for consolidation of the domestic banking industry. This structure is now held out by the OJK to promote further foreign investment in the Indonesian banking sector.

Yanny has also developed a busy fintech practice in recent years on the back of Indonesia’s tech boom, advising local and international fintech participants, ranging from disruptive start-ups to high-profile financial institutions, on all aspects of their operations and ventures in Indonesia, including regulatory & compliance, establishing entities, investment and fundraising, IP, setting up platforms and access to platforms, general terms & conditions of use/sale, digital marketing, and cybersecurity & data privacy. She offers particular experience and expertise in P2P, e-money, crowdfunding, payments, cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

In project finance & development,  she is counsel to Inalum (an Indonesian state-owned alumina producer that was appointed the holding company for all state-owned mining enterprises in 2017), which together with Antam (another Indonesian state-owned mining company) and PT Borneo Alumina Indonesia (project company owned by Inalum and Antam), is developing a smelter-grade alumina refinery in Mempawah (West Kalimantan Province) as a joint venture between Inalum, Antam and the world’s second largest alumina producer, Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd. (Chalco). Phase 1 of the project involves an investment of approx. USD 1 billion, with a further USD 2 billion expected to be invested during the second phase over the next 5 years.

In M&A/FDI, she advises high-end corporations, investment and private equity funds, venture capitalists, strategic investors and vulture funds on all aspects of their Indonesian transactions across the entire legal spectrum. She recently assisted Deutsche Investitions-und Entiwicklungsgesellschaft MBH (a Germany-based development finance agency) with its investment in PT Verena Multi Finance Tbk, an Indonesian publicly listed auto finance company.

In real estate, she advises clients on land acquisitions and restrictions on foreign ownership of land; title searches and registration of titles; land due diligence; commercial leases, real property-related financing and security; commercial real-estate developments (such as shopping malls, industrial estates, hotels/resorts, and residential complexes); M&A deals; complex fund and REIT transactions; and private-equity deals.

Languages

Indonesian and English.

Memberships

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

Education

LL.B (University of Indonesia)