Astra otoparts sells 51% stake

Astra otoparts sells 51% stake

JAKARTA: Indonesia's listed automotive spare-part maker, PT Astra Otoparts, said Friday it has sold its 51 percent stake in a compact camera-making joint venture to one of its partners for Rp 15.54 billion.

Astra Otoparts said it sold the majority stake in PT Adiwira Presisi Industri to Japan's Nittoh Kogaku K.K., which already held 35 percent of Adiwira.

Other shareholders are Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and its Indonesian unit PT Mitsui Indonesia.

The local company didn't say why it sold the stake. Analysts said Astra Otoparts needs to raise fresh cash to inject funds into its automotive spare-part joint venture company, PT Nusa Keihin Indonesia.

Astra Otoparts said Friday it will inject fresh capital into Nusa without specifying how much. It owns 51 percent of Nusa, while Japan's Keihin Seimitsu Kogyo Co. Ltd. controls the remaining 49 percent. -- Dow Jones

Fujitsu to replace faulty drives

TOKYO: Japanese electronics giant Fujitsu Ltd. will replace free of charge faulty hard-disk drives (HDDs) in its desk-top computers as well as NEC and IBM products, a spokesman said Friday.

The move will cost Fujitsu 2.4 billion yen (US$20 million).

The firm was only issuing a limited repair program rather than replacing all 10 million HDDs shipped for use in computers made by Fujitsu and other firms such as NEC Corp., IBM Japan Corp. and Hitachi Ltd.

An estimated three percent of all HDDS produced by Fujitsu in the year to September 2001 could encounter trouble when exposed to high-temperature and high-humidity conditions, he said.

Computer makers have already started offering free repairs. -- AFP

GE to finance Japan manufacturer

TOKYO: The General Electric Co. (GE) group will start a financing program targeted at Japanese manufacturers operating in other Asian countries or planning to shift production there, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported in its Friday evening edition.

As a first step, the group will offer one-year or longer-term financing schemes in the local currency to firms in Thailand and Indonesia, aiming to lend at least 10 billion yen in the first year, the financial daily reported.

Making the most of its financing expertise, the group intends to offer a lending plan that allows loan repayments to vary according to the monthly shipment value of a plant, and another plan under which GE would lease plants back to companies after buying the facilities from them. -- AFP

MobilCom to file for insolvency

BUEDELSDORF, GERMANY: The German telephone operator MobilCom expects to file for insolvency "very swiftly", following the decision by its major shareholder France Telecom to turn off the financial tap, a spokesman said on Friday.

"It is to be expected that we will file for insolvency very swiftly," the spokesman told AFP. "A few things still need to be cleared up. For example, we need to know from France Telecom whether we'll be starting with seven billion euros in debt or zero debt." -- AFP

Samsung to export handsets to China

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said Friday it would export US$400 million worth of handsets to China Unicom Ltd. over the three months to December.

Under the deal reached on Thursday, Samsung Electronics will supply 700,000 units of code division multiple access (CDMA) handsets by the end of this year to China's second largest mobile carrier.

"It's a very important deal for us. The deal paves the way for us to expand handset exports to China, one of the fastest growing markets in the world," a company spokesman said.

The deal also marked the first exports of the higher-end CDMA 2000 1x handsets by Samsung Electronics to the Chinese market.

The CDMA 1x handsets feature color screens, many different ring tones and built-in digital cameras. -- AFP

Nintendo to consider selling Rare stake

TOKYO: Japanese video game giant Nintendo Co. Ltd. said Friday it would consider selling a stake in UK game software developer Rare Ltd. if another firm, such as Microsoft Corp., showed an interest.

Rare, which makes a series of games such as the classic "Donkey Kong" for Nintendo's Gamecube home-use console and handheld Gameboy, has contributed less and less to Nintendo's sales in recent years, so any potential sell-off would have little impact on the Japanese firm, a spokesman said.

"Last year Nintendo sold a lot of software but Rare's contribution only comprised 1.5 percent. In 2000, it amounted to 9.5 percent." said Nintendo's Yosuhiro Minagawa. -- AFP