Agro Pantes out to seal debt deal

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed textile company PT Argo Pantes said on Monday that it hoped to clinch a deal with its creditors by the end of the year to restructure its US$280 million debt.

Finance director Wira Tjendana said the company was in negotiation on a debt restructuring agreement with its 40 creditors, mostly foreign banks.

"We are proposing to reschedule our debts for another five to seven years of loan tenure."

He said about $4.5 million of the total was owed to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), which recently took over nonperforming loans worth Rp 230 trillion from the country's ailing banks.

Wira was reluctant to explain further details about the loan restructuring, saying he feared his comments would disrupt the negotiations with creditors.

Argo Pantes' total sales reached Rp 1.5 trillion in 1998, a 163 percent increase over the previous year.

It attributed the increase to the rise in the company's exports amid the appreciation of the U.S. dollar to the rupiah during the year.

However, the company booked a net loss of Rp 724 billion in 1998, compared to Rp 365 billion the previous year.

The company suffered foreign exchange losses of Rp 887 billion in 1998 and Rp 441 billion in 1997.

They were calculated based on an exchange rate of Rp 8,068 to the dollar for the 1998 financial year and Rp 4,650 for 1997.

Argo's total assets in 1998 increased 81 percent to Rp 2.9 trillion. It was mainly due to the ballooning value of its fixed assets as a result of the Rp 965 billion surplus in the company's fixed assets reevaluation at the end of the year.

Company president Abdul Moeis said he was optimistic about business prospects for 1999 because export sales continued to increase and production volume was approaching the precrisis level.

"The company now sells more than 90 percent of its production output for export," he said, compared to 60 percent of the total production before the crisis struck.

Abdul said about 27 percent of the total exports were to Japan, 17 percent to Netherlands, 10 percent to Hong Kong and the remaining 46 percent to other countries.

He acknowledged that the revenue level for 1999 would be similar to 1998 because sales in the first five months of the year totaled only about Rp 480 billion.

The integrated textile company is listed on the Jakarta and Surabaya stock exchanges.

It produces textile fabrics to meet orders from international brand-name clients such as Levi's, Liz Claiborne, Nike apparel, Marks & Spencer and Tommy Hilfiger. (udi)