Bakrie meets creditors

JAKARTA (JP): PT Bakrie & Brothers held a meeting with representatives of its international creditors yesterday to restructure its foreign debts.

Aburizal Bakrie, chairman of the Bakrie Group, said at the meeting: "The key to our future lies in executing now a restructuring of our debt exposure with, rather against, our lenders."

Publicly listed Bakrie & Brothers is under the Bakrie Group.

Bakrie Group spokesman Siddharta Moersjid said 130 senior executives representing Bakrie & Brothers' international creditors from Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Europe and the United States attended the meeting.

Radius Prawiro, the chairman of the government-appointed committee to restructure private debts, was also on hand at the meeting.

Siddharta said the creditors welcomed the company's proposal to form a Bakrie creditors committee to restructure the company's debt over a three-month period.

He said the company's foreign debt currently totaled US$1.1 billion, 96 percent of which was hedged at levels between Rp 2,450 and Rp 2,750 to the dollar. (rid)