Astra Graphia arranges debt restructure

CIPANAS, West Java (JP): Publicly listed information technology company PT Astra Graphia has secured an approval from creditors to restructure debts amounting to US$82.26 million, a company executive said on Friday.

Corporate Secretary Handoyo Gunawan said here the debt restructuring agreement was signed late last month.

"The loans, with an initial maturity on Feb. 27 next year, have been rescheduled for another five years, plus a one and a half year extension option," Handoyo said, during a corporate workshop sponsored by parent company car giant PT Astra International.

He said the debt restructuring only involved a rescheduling, and that there was no additional grace period or a debt-to- equity swap involved.

The above loans were owed to a seven-foreign-bank syndicate and the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency and Bank Universal.

The foreign bank syndication includes Salomon Brothers of the United States and the Japanese banks of Mitsubishi Tokyo, Sakura Bank Ltd and International Bank of Japan, according to Handoyo.

Astra Graphia, which also has footwear, leather and apparel industries, would, in the future, refocus on the company's core business operation in the information technology industry, he said.

A source at the capital market said that Astra Graphia was in serious talks with local investors about the sale of the company's non-core businesses.

"Astra Graphia is selling its non-core businesses -- which only give marginal profits -- to excel in its main business, information technology," he said.

Astra Graphia booked net sales of Rp 976 billion in the first nine months this year, as compared to Rp 980 billion in the corresponding period last year.

Handoyo said net sales for the whole of 1999 were forecast at Rp 1.4 trillion.

Astra Graphia's net profit stood at Rp 64.7 billion in the January-September period, as compared to minus Rp 159.5 billion in the same period last year.

Executives of other Astra International's listed subsidiaries such as Astra Agro Lestari, United Tractors, Sumalindo Lestari and Bank Universal also spoke during the workshop.

Astra Agro

An executive of PT Astra Agro Lestari said the crude palm oil (CPO) producer had revised its 1999 palm oil output forecast to 310,000 metric tons, from between 340,000 tons and 350,000 tons previously.

The company director Benny Tjoeng said palm oil production during the January-September period reached a total of 227,000 tons.

Benny expressed concerns over reports on the shipment of diesel-contaminated palm oil from Belawan port in North Sumatra to Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The scandal had tainted the image of the country's CPO, he said.

Another Astra International's business unit of heavy machinery concerns, PT United Tractors, said it had improved its performance, particularly in the company's mining division.

Investor relations manager Thomas H. Aslim said the company had shipped 2.17 tons of coal during the first nine months of the year, or a 74 percent increase from the same period last year.

The company forecast it would ship a total of 3.5 million tons of coal this year, as compared to 2.16 tons last year.

Thomas said the windfall revenue was due to customers obtained from a number of Australian coal mines that had to close down because they could not compete with the fall in the world's coal price.

"We had new customers abroad that had been left by their Australian coal supplier due to a production close down," he said.

He said the current world's coal price stood at about US$18 per ton, while the average production cost at an Indonesian coal mine was between $14 and $15 per ton, way lower than the international average.

The company's consolidated revenues dropped to 2.87 trillion in the third quarter this year, from Rp 3.11 trillion in the same period 1998.

Thomas said that the decline was partly due to the strengthening of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar. (udi)