Barito Pacific triples capital to $1.38 billion

JAKARTA (JP): PT Barito Pacific Timber (BPT), Indonesia's largest logging and plywood manufacturer, reported yesterday a sharp increase in its authorized capital to Rp 3 trillion (US$1.38 billion) from only Rp 850 billion.

"We are now awaiting approval from the Ministry of Justice for our capital increase," president of Barito Pacific Timber (BPT), Yoso Abdullah Gotama, told reporters after the company's extraordinary shareholders meeting here yesterday.

Yoso said the capital increase, billed as the biggest among companies listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, was intended to anticipate the rapidly increasing forestry-related business both inside the country and overseas.

"In addition, we are geared up for business diversification in the future," he added, but declined to elaborate.

Prajogo Pangestu, Chairman of the Barito Pacific Group, who also attended the news conference, said many foreign investors had approached him for new business ventures.

For example, he said investors in the U.S., Japan and Europe had offered to buy his plant in Palembang, South Sumatra, which produced elemental chlorine free (ECF) pulp.

"But we have turned down the offers because we need the plant to support our timber estate development in the province," he pointed out.

Barito has a concession of 300,000 hectares of timber estates in South Sumatra, of which 140,000 hectares have been cultivated with acacia mangium trees at a total investment of some Rp 300 billion.

The ECF pulp industry was jointly owned by Barito, Nippon Paper and Marubeni, both of Japan, which are among the leading pulp manufacturers in the world. Their investment for the ECF pulp industry was around $1 billion, Prajogo said.

Bonus shares

Yoso reported that Barito's shareholders agreed to the management's proposal to distribute bonus shares as well as pay a cash dividend of Rp 133 per share.

For the bonus share scheme, every existing share is entitled to one new share, he said. The bonus shares will be issued from the capitalization of Barito's capital gain collected during its public offering in October 1993, he added.

"The total bonus shares are worth around Rp 700 billion," he said. The nominal price is Rp 1,000 per bonus share, he pointed out.

The total amount of the cash dividend reached Rp 93.10 billion, reflecting 30 percent of its 1993 after-tax profit, which shot up to Rp 310.16 billion from Rp 79.75 billion the previous year, Yoso added.

This significant rise in its profit was mainly caused by the jump in its operational income expenses to Rp 333.28 billion against Rp 142.25 billion previously, Yoso said.

Its earning per share increased to Rp 506 last year from Rp 163 in 1992.

As of Dec. 31, around two months after the listing of the company's 700 million shares, Barito's assets had soared by 57.1 percent to Rp 2.75 trillion.

BPT, which was owned by Prajogo, Barito Pacific Lumber, PT Tunggal Setia Pratama, the civil servants' pension fund PT Taspen, Mukti Lestari Kencana and cooperatives, exported 95 percent of its products to 25 countries.

BPT holds 22 forest concessions and is affiliated with more than 21 forest concession holders with a combined area of 5.06 million hectares in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Maluku and Irian Jaya. (fhp)