Malaysian PM's son in race for Indon Texmaco Group

04 July 2003 07:07  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (CNI)--Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's eldest son is leading a group, Utara Capital, bidding for debt-distressed Indonesian fibre intermediates, synthetic fibres and textile maker Texmaco Group, a source at the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (Ibra) told CNI on Friday.

Utara Capital is competing with companies such as China's National Bluestar, a Beijing based state-owned enterprise. The winning bidder for Texmaco -Indonesia's largest textiles producer - will have to assume its debts, which are valued at Rupiah28trn ($6.16bn/Euro5.37bn).

Texmaco operates a 340 000 tonne/year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant to support its downstream operations in staple fibres and fibre yarns.

Utara and Bluestar were not immediately available for comment.

Meanwhile, the Ibra source said it has received nine preliminary bids for four major assets that are being offloaded under its asset sales programme, including a stake in the country's sole cracker operator Chandra Asri.

Ibra has rescheduled the date of submission of final bids to 11 July from 4 July.

The winning bidder for each of the four assets will be obliged to make a first payment of 30% of the purchase price offered by 15 July. The signing of the sales and purchase agreement will take place on 16 July. The balance 70% of the purchase price for each asset must be paid by 20 July, the Ibra source added.

An Ibra spokesman told CNI earlier that at least two foreign companies and one local company were among those to have lodged preliminary bids last Friday (20 June) for the agency's 28.72% stake in Chandra Asri and $100m in loans. The spokesman could not divulge the names or nationalities of the companies.

He said prospective investors had submitted business plans and sales and purchase agreements which were currently being evaluated.

Industry speculation is that Sudwikatmono and Prajogo Pangetsu, co-founders of Indonesia's largest polypropylene (PP) producer PT TriPolyta, will get together to bid for Ibra's stake in Chandra Asri.

Prajogo is known to be a close friend of Sudwikatmono, an associate of former President Suharto, whose Indika Group was the successful bidder earlier this year for polyethylene (PE) producer PT Petrokimia Nusantara Interindo (Peni) for $50m. He owns a 47% stake in Chandra Asri after recent restructuring -- down from the 76.19% he owned earlier.

Chandra Asri, a 550 000 tonne/year olefins player, also produces 300 000 tonne/year of PE. Along with Peni's 450 000 tonne/year of high density PE (hdPE)/linear low density PE (lldPE), the merger would create a formidable PE player.

Apart from Chandra Asri and Texmaco, the other Ibra assets up for sale include restructured and unrestructured loans owed by the Bali Nirwana Resort and Golf club at Tanah Lot and a sugar plant owned by PT Fabrik Gulah Rajawali.

By: Iqbal Anand
+65 6780 4359

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