BCA reports lower net profit
BCA reports lower net profit
JAKARTA: Bank Central Asia (BCA), one of Indonesia's leading banks, said Tuesday its audited consolidated net profit fell 19 percent on year to Rp 2.54 trillion in 2002, dragged by a higher deferred income tax.
Deferred income tax soared to Rp 850.1 billion in 2002 from Rp 35.1 billion in 2001, but BCA didn't give a reason for the increase.
On operating level, BCA's performance improved in 2002. Its net interest income rose to Rp 5.46 trillion from Rp 5.12 trillion a year earlier, which drove operating profit 7.7 percent higher on year to Rp 3.36 trillion.
The bank's capital adequacy ratio, which is the comparison between equity capital and loans, stood at 32.19 percent on Dec. 31, versus 32.64 percent a year earlier.
Its non-performing loans were 3.47 percent of total loans as the end of last year, a slight increase from 3.15 percent a year before.
Farindo Investment (Mauritius) Ltd. holds a 52.4 percent stake in BCA, while the Indonesian government owns 8.56 percent. Its founder, the Salim Group, has 5.07 percent, and public investors own the rest. -- Dow Jones
;DJ; ANPAf..r.. CorporateBrief-AstraAgro-nonCPO Astra Agro to sell non-CPO units JP/14/brief
Astra Agro to sell non-CPO units
JAKARTA: Indonesian crude palm oil producer PT Astra Agro Lestari said Tuesday it expects to finish the sale of its non- crude palm oil units by the end of the third quarter of this year.
"We want to finish the sale of the cocoa, tea and rubber units by the third quarter of this year," Astra Agro's vice president director, Benny Tjoeng, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Astra Agro has 12 such units in Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan islands.
Tjoeng said the total size of the plantations for sale is around 24,000 hectares. The plan to sell its units is aimed at focusing on its core business, the crude palm oil industry, he added.
He declined to reveal how much money Astra Agro will raise from the sales.
The daily Tempo newspaper Tuesday quoted Astra Agro director Juliani Eliza Syaftari as saying the company would likely raise up to US$35 million from the sales.
Astra Agro is 63.9 percent owned by Indonesian auto group PT Astra International.
Late last year, the car manufacturer said it had signed an $850 million debt-restructuring deal with its creditors, which included the sale of assets such as its stake in the plantations group. However, the parent company later said it doesn't plan to sell its shareholding in Astra Agro, which it considers to be a valuable asset. -- Dow Jones
;DJ; ANPAf..r.. CorporateBrief-Wahaha-global Wahaha to become global player JP/14/brief
Wahaha to become global player
BEIJING: Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., China's largest beverage company, wants to become a consumer goods company of global scale by expanding its brand into new areas such as children's clothing and personal-care products.
In a meeting with reporters at the weekend, company Chairman Zong Qinghou laid out the company's plan to become a diversified consumer goods multinational. He said Wahaha is also planning to open drinks factories in Indonesia and Thailand, probably next year.
"I want to make this company big and strong, and I see that the big companies in the world all have diversified operations," Zong said.
"This year our main goals are to continue to expand our beverage products, and to do well in children's clothing," he said. "In the second half of the year, we will develop some new types of daily-use products, such as shampoo."
He defended the plan to expand beyond the company's core beverage business, arguing that "for fast-moving consumer goods, the sales channels and sales methods are all pretty much the same."
"There still isn't a strong brand of children's clothing in China," Zong said, nothing that while China is a major maker and exporter of textiles and clothing, most of that is done under contract for foreign companies. -- Dow Jones
;DJ; ANPAf..r.. CorporateBrief-SKGroup-fraud SK Group executives indicted JP/14/brief
SK Group executives indicted
SEOUL: South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday indicted SK Group owner Chey Tae-Won and nine top executives of the country's third largest conglomerate on charges of accounting fraud and other business irregularities.
The group was accused of manipulating accounts to inflate earnings of its trading arm SK Global by 1.56 trillion won (US$1.26 billion) in 2001, the Seoul district prosecutor's office announced.
The formal indictment followed the arrests last month of Chey and SK Group restructuring team chief Kim Chang-Keun as prosecutors launched an investigation into allegations of illegal stock trading and other wrongdoing.
Eight other senior SK Group officials, including group chairman Son Kil-Seung, were indicted Tuesday but were not detained.
Chey, the 42-year-old eldest son of the group's founding family, was initially held during the course of the illegal stock trading investigation. -- AFP