Consultants to help restructure state firms
Consultants to help restructure state firms
JAKARTA (JP): The government has named six foreign consultants
to assist in the consolidation of the 159 state-owned companies
into 10 holding companies, a senior government official said on
Thursday.
Sofyan Djalil, an assistant to the State Minister of the
Empowerment of State Enterprises, said the government hired
McKenzie & Co., PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Boston Consulting Group,
A.T. Kerney, Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc. and Ernst & Young.
"They will help us in analyzing the pluses and minuses of the
holding companies," he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of
a seminar.
Sofyan said that McKenzie would handle consolidation for the
agroindustry sector, A.T. Kerney for strategic industries,
PriceWaterhouseCoopers for the mining sector and Ernst & Young
for forestry, paper and wood product industries.
He did not specify the assignments of Boston Consulting Group
and Booz Allen & Hamilton.
They were selected from nine overseas consultants which
participated in the bid.
State Minister of the Empowerment of State Enterprises Tanri
Abeng has set a September target for the consolidation of the
state firms into 10 holding companies.
Tanri argues the consolidation will boost the value of the
companies, enhancing the government's chance of raising a larger
amount of revenue from privatization.
Sofyan said the revenue from the privatization would help the
government repay its foreign debt, currently estimated at about
US$70 billion.
He dismissed concern that the plan to establish the holding
companies would disrupt the current privatization program.
Tanri's office has targeted raising about Rp 13 trillion from
privatization proceeds to help finance the 1999/2000 state
budget.
Sofyan said that at the current exchange rate of about Rp
6,700 to the U.S. dollar, the target would be about $2 billion.
The government has raised $806 million in privatization
proceeds so far, he added.
Sofyan was optimistic the rest of the target could be met.
He said the government would proceed with the privatization of
plantation firms PT Perkebunan IV and PT Perkebunan III,
international telecommunications firm PT Indosat and airport
management firm PT Angkasa Pura II, which manages the Soekarno-
Hatta International Airport.
He added that initial bids for Angkasa Pura II by two foreign
airport management firms, one from France and the other a
consortium of Schipol in the Netherlands and the British Airport
Authority, were turned down.
"Their first bids were lower than our expectations, so we
asked them to repeat the bids," Sofyan said. (rei)