Govt to revalue Dipasena assets

Govt to revalue Dipasena assets

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government will appoint an independent appraiser to revalue
troubled assets of PT Dipasena Citra Darmaja, Southeast Asia's
largest shrimp-farming company, before offering them to investors
for sale or in a bid to seek working capital.

The reappraisal aims to clarify the firm's current asset
value, which many believed to have significantly dropped not long
after tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim handed over the assets as part of
the payments of his massive debts to the government in 2002.

"The move is part of our efforts to effectively recover
Sjamsul's debts," said Raden Pardede, deputy president director
of asset management firm PT Perusahaan Pengelola Aset (PPA) told
The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

PPA is a company under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance
with a task to manage unsold assets previously handled by the
now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).

Sjamsul, chairman of the Gajah Tunggal Group, transferred the
Dipasena asset to the government to partly settle his Rp 28
trillion (US$3.1 billion) debts.

The debts were a result of the channeling of a Bank Indonesia
Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) fund to support Sjamsul's Bank Dagang
Nasional Indonesia (BDNI) cope with massive runs during the
monetary crisis in late 1997.

In 1998, the IBRA claimed Dipasena was worth about Rp 20
trillion. However, an audit conducted by IBRA in 2002 showed the
companies assets were only worth a 10th of that value or about Rp
2 trillion.

Raden said the confusion about the value of the company's
assets had discouraged potential investors from taking over the
firm.

"This is a protracted problem; Sjamsul's legacy to the state.
Reports about the inflation of Dipasena assets have greatly
reduced investors' interest in the company," said Raden.

Once the reappraisal of the firm was completed, the PPA would
appoint an independent financial advisor to come up with ways to
restructure the company.

In a recent meeting with the House of Representatives'
Commission IX on financial affairs, PPA said one option for the
firm would be to remain under PPA control while the agency helped
restructure its operations and invited in new investors to inject
working capital.

This option would potentially give more long-term returns to
the government, compared to the sale of the assets at cheaper
prices.

At present, Dipasena, which has a concession of about 180,000
hectares in Lampung, can only utilize 30 percent of its
production capacity due to the lack of working capital.

The Attorney General's Office recently halted its corruption
investigation into Sjamsul, saying the businessman had repaid all
of the outstanding BLBI funds.

Sjamsul was declared a suspect in a BLBI case in 2000 after
has bank failed to repay the BLBI. In addition, the bank was
accused of violating the country's legal lending limits by
channeling most of its loans into subsidiary companies.

Sjamsul avoided an investigation or prosecution by claiming he
needed to seek medical treatment abroad. He has been a resident
in Singapore, which does not have an extradition treaty with
Indonesia, since 2001.