Manulife Indonesia and HSBC recently gave a presentation on the benefits of using interest-rate swaps to the Ministry of Finance. Chris Bendl, managing director, investment and pension services at Manulife in Jakarta, said the company has been looking to tap the swaps market for some time to hedge its investment portfolio (DW, 6/19/00). He described the presentation as well received. Officials at the MoF and HSBC in Jakarta and could not be reached for comment.
The insurer would like to use swaps to hedge duration risk on it's a USD200 million portfolio of U.S. dollar-denominated assets, Bendl added. If it receives approval, Manulife would like to enter swaps in which it pays floating on between 10-30% of its portfolio.
