AWB not to buy Bogasari

AWB not to buy Bogasari

CANBERRA (Dow Jones): Australia's monopoly wheat exporter AWB Ltd Monday downplayed rumors it is about to buy Indonesia's PT Bogasari Flour Mills, the world's largest miller.

But an AWB spokesman confirmed it is looking at investment opportunities in what is a major customer country.

Indonesia is an important market and it is always looking at ways to ensure continuity of supply of Australian wheat to Indonesia, the spokesman said.

"We will explore whatever opportunities are available, but that doesn't mean to say we're necessarily going to buy any flour mills up there," the AWB spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires.

"For anyone to say we are going to buy some is way premature," he said.

Bogasari is a unit of food company PT Indofood Sukses Makmur. Indofood itself is a unit of the Salim Group.

Indonesia, Bogasari in particular, is a major buyer of wheat from AWB, a major participant in world wheat markets.