Dharmala Sakti goes bust as debt restructuring opposed
Dharmala Sakti goes bust as debt restructuring opposed
JAKARTA (JP): In an unprecedented event, creditors voted on
Wednesday at the Jakarta Commercial Court to bankrupt publicly
listed PT Dharmala Sakti Sejahtera after they turned down the
latter's debt restructuring proposal.
The vote, which was attended by eligible representatives of
almost all Dharmala Sakti's creditors, resulted in 74.97 percent
of the creditors approving the move to declare bankrupt Dharmala
Sakti, while the rest either opposed the move or abstained.
"The creditors have reached the majority vote to decide the
fate of Dharmala Sakti, thus the (Jakarta Commercial) Court will
hold a session on Friday or Monday to make an official sentence,"
the judge supervising the voting process, Syamsudin Manan Sinaga,
said.
Joint venture creditor PT Hanil Bakrie Finance Corporation
filed a bankruptcy suit in mid-February against Dharmala Sakti
for the latter's failure in repaying a US$2.4 million matured
debt.
Dharmala Sakti then asked the court to hold off issuing a
verdict in the bankruptcy suit filed in order to allow the
holding company to negotiate its debt restructuring with the
creditors.
In the 1998 Bankruptcy Law such a request is possible as
stipulated in its suspension of payment section, which says
that a company facing a bankruptcy suit can temporarily halt the
action by filing a suspension of payment (locally known as PKPU)
request to the court.
If the request is approved, the company is given a maximum of
270 days to negotiate a debt restructuring deal with all of its
creditors.
However, the grace period can be ended at any time by a
majority vote of the creditors if the borrower fails to show it
has the ability and good faith to settle its debts.
Among the biggest creditors of Dharmala Sakti who
participated in the voting process were the Indonesian Bank
Restructuring Agency, Hong Kong-based Peregrine Fixed Income,
currently in liquidation, the Singapore branch of Canadian
Imperial Bank of Commerce, joint venture PT AB Sinar Mas Finance
and the Jakarta office of Standard Chartered Bank.
Dharmala Sakti is a holding company of Dharmala Group, owned
by the Gondokusumo family.
There are five companies affiliated with Dharmala Group that
have been declared bankrupt: PT Dharmala Agrifood, PT Putra Surya
Multidana, PT Deemte Sakti Indo, PT Putra Sejahtera Persada and
foreign affiliate Detron Ltd. of Singapore. (udi)